The mass loss resulting from this glacier acceleration in Greenland is very significant. These are very active glaciers. They all end up in the ocean, discharge icebergs and are very dynamic. One you push them a little bit out of equilibrium, they start retreating very fast.

The Greenland ice sheet's contribution to sea level is an issue of considerable societal and scientific importance.

The evolution of the ice sheet, in the context of climate warming, is more rapid than has been predicted by models.

These findings call into question predictions of the future of Greenland in a warmer climate from computer models that do not include variations in glacier flow as a component of change. Actual changes will likely be much larger than predicted by these models.

Climate warming can work in different ways, but generally speaking, if you warm up the ice sheet, the glacier will flow faster.

In the future, as warming around Greenland progresses further north, we expect additional losses from northwest Greenland glaciers, which will then increase Greenland's contribution to sea level rise.

This is clearly a result of warming around the periphery of Greenland.

It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet, but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes.

The behavior of the glaciers that dump ice into the sea is the most important aspect of understanding how an ice sheet will evolve in a changing climate. It takes a long time to build and melt an ice sheet, but glaciers can react quickly to temperature changes.

It's likely that Greenland is going to contribute more and faster to rising sea levels than previously estimated.