[Music]
Narrator: It is easy to imagine Greenland as a land of perpetual ice.
However, scientists have recently estimated that the Greenland Ice Sheet may
be gone within the millennium.
Andy: My name is Andy Aschwanden, I am a Glaciologist with the University
of Alaska, Fairbanks. I work at the Geophysical Institute.
Narrator: Andy and his colleagues have used data
collected by NASA to model some of the possible futures of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
Andy: So, we see our projection
of how the Greenland Ice Sheet will retreat
over the course of the next roughly 300 years.
It’s really cool that now we can actually watch
in the animation, in the simulation, how we think it behaves.
I mean, we put the best physics possible in there and we can
actually watch what could happen. That is something we could not have done before.
NASA’s Operation Ice Bridge
over the past decade has been instrumental in gathering the
datasets that help drive our model.
Narrator: This model gives us a more accurate picture of how greenhouse gas
emissions may affect Greenland - and us - in the future.
Andy: Of the three scenarios that we tested there was one sort
of a low emissions, medium emissions,
and high emission scenario. And,
at the moment, it looks like we’re on the highest scenario.
The three different scenarios lead to
basically three different futures, three different Greenlands.
If we choose the path we are on right now,
if we stay on that path, there is actually good chance that within 1000
years or so, the whole Ice Sheet
will be gone.
Narrator: These scenarios show that the melting ice could contribute at least 80% more sea level rise than previous estimates.
This model helps us understand the dynamic nature of the Greenland
Ice Sheet, and arms us with the knowledge we need to inform our future.