Scientists from the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute have discovered that the rate at which permafrost melts depends not only on climatic factors, but also on its shape.
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The institute's press office notes that the data upon which these findings are based was collected over years of monitoring the Aldgun and West Grønfjord glaciers in the Svalbard archipelago. Scientists determined that these ice masses lost approximately 18-20 meters of water equivalent mass between 2013 and 2025.
The statement from the office read: "The rate at which ice masses melt depends not only on climate warming, but also on their shape and size. Without taking into account the engineering factor, climate assessments based on temperature change data may be inaccurate."
Scientists have calculated the mass balance in two ways: the first takes into account the annual changes in the shape of the ice surface, and the second is relative to its geometric shape as recorded in 2008. They discovered that as a result of the ice masses moving to a lower and warmer altitude, they lose an additional 1-2 percent of ice annually in Aldgund, and between 0.5-1 percent in West Groenefjord, in addition to what is attributed to climate change.
According to scientists, this additional loss has been minimal over the past two decades and does not affect the overall climate assessment. However, the longer the observation period and the faster the ice sheets melt, the more apparent this "exaggerated" loss of mass becomes.
“Ice is a constantly changing organism,” says Anton Terekoff, senior researcher at the institute. “As it melts, its surface area drops, and the air temperature below rises. As a result, the ice begins to melt at a faster rate, even if the outside air temperature does not change by even one degree. This effect is currently small, but if we do not take it into account when analyzing the long series of observations, we risk interpreting part of the ice’s ‘geometric’ history as a climate signal that does not actually exist.”
The institute's experts propose applying this method to the study of all ice masses worldwide. They are confident that, thanks to digital elevation models from satellites covering the entire Arctic and Antarctic regions, these calculations can be replicated for virtually any ice area.
According to them, this will allow for a more accurate separation of the actual consequences of global warming from the "internal calculations" of the ice itself, and thus a more accurate prediction of its future fate.
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