Greenland Ice Sheet from airplane of Turkish airways
The Greenland ice sheet (Greenlandic: Sermersuaq) is a vast body of ice covering 1,710,000 square kilometres (660,000 sq mi), roughly 80% of the surface of Greenland. It is the second largest ice body in the world, after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The ice sheet is almost 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) long in a north-south direction, and its greatest width is 1,100 kilometres (680 mi) at a latitude of 77°N, near its northern margin. The mean altitude of the ice is 2,135 metres (7,005 ft).[1] The thickness is generally more than 2 km ( mi) and over 3 km ( mi) at its thickest point. It is not the only ice mass of Greenland – isolated glaciers and small ice caps cover between 76,000 and 100,000 square kilometres (29,000 and 39,000 sq mi) around the periphery. Some scientists predict that climate change may be near a "tipping point" where the entire ice sheet will melt in about 2,000 years.[2] If the entire 2,850,000 cubic kilometres (684,000 cu mi) of ice were to melt, it would lead to a global sea level rise of m (24 ft).[3] The Greenland Ice Sheet is also sometimes referred to under the term inland ice, or its Danish equivalent, indlandsis. It is also sometimes referred to as an ice cap. "Ice sheet" is considered the more correct term, as "ice cap" generally refers to less extensive ice masses. The ice in the current ice sheet is as old as 110,000 years.[4] The presence of ice-rafted sediments in deep-sea cores recovered off of northeast Greenland, in the Fram Strait, and south of Greenland indicated the more or less continuous presence of either an ice sheet or ice sheets covering significant parts of Greenland for the last 18 million years. From just before 11 million years ago to a little after 10 million years ago, the Greenland Ice Sheet appears to have been greatly reduced in size. The Greenland Ice Sheet formed in the middle Miocene by coalescence of ice caps and glaciers. There was an intensification of glaciation during the Late Pliocene.
Size: 5373px × 3582px
Location: Greenland
Photo credit: © Alireza Teimoury / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: aircraft, airways, altitude, atlantic, danish, greenland, high, ice, iceberg, north, ocean, plane, pole, sheet, travel, turkish, window, wings, world
