"NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) project has revealed Greenland’s Jakobshavn Glacier, the island’s biggest, is actually growing, at least at its edge. In research published Monday in Nature Geoscience, researchers report that since 2016, Jakobshavn’s ice has thickened slightly, thanks to relatively cool ocean waters at its base—which have caused the glacier to slow down its melt. This reverses the glacier’s 20-year trend of thinning and retreating. But because of what else is happening on the ice sheet, and the overall climate outlook, that’s not necessarily a good thing for global sea level."

"That's because, despite the fact that this particular glacier is growing, the whole Greenland ice sheet is still losing lots and lots of ice. Jakobshavn drains only about seven percent of the entire ice sheet, so even if it were growing robustly, mass loss from the rest of the ice sheet would outweigh its slight expansion."

"Why is Jakobshavn growing? The scientists point to a recent influx of unusually cold water from the north Atlantic pushing into the Arctic. This has been particularly marked in Disko Bay, which spills over into the Illulisat Icefjord, the glacier’s home. At a depth of 820 feet, temperatures have dropped two degrees Celsius since 2014. And that colder water has helped the glacier slow its melt and even grow slightly."

"This influx of cold waters isn't an isolated event: Thanks to a natural cycle in the Atlantic Ocean that switches back and forth between warm and cold about once every 20 years, cooler waters are penetrating far up the western coast of Greenland. But the phase will switch again at some point and warmer waters will return."

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...d-ice-growing/