Courtesy of Jan Kavan
Since 2000, the melting of Arctic glaciers has exposed some 1,500 miles of coastline, a study finds.
For the research, published in Nature Climate Change, scientists tracked the movement of 1,500 coastal glaciers from 2000 to 2020, finding that retreating ice had unveiled hundreds of miles of coastline, largely in Greenland.
Scientists say that retreating glaciers are revealing stores of precious metals, but they warn that newly exposed coastline, which has not been cemented with ice, is vulnerable to erosion and landslides.
In September 2023, a thinning coastal glacier in eastern Greenland gave way, leading to a massive landslide in the Dickson fjord. The landslide produced a 350-foot-high tsunami that registered on seismometers around the globe.
ALSO ON YALE E360
With Sea Ice Melting, Killer Whales Are Moving Into the Arctic
