Greenland’s Ice Sheet is cracking open at the seams, literally falling apart at speeds indicative of the brutal and accelerating impact of global climate change. In just five years, 930 million cubic meters of crevasses opened up in the Greenland ice sheet.

We found that from 2016 to 2021, there were significant increases in crevasse volume across fast-flowing sectors of the Greenland ice sheet. In the southeast of the ice sheet, an area that has been particularly vulnerable to ocean-induced acceleration and retreat in the past few years, crevasse volume increased by over 25%.

The world’s second largest body of ice – the Greenland Ice Sheet – is cracking open quicker than previously, scientists have warned. Using 3-D maps of its surface, researchers have found crevasses have got significantly wider and deeper at the sheet’s fast-flowing edges between 2016 and 2021.

The sheet is the second largest body of ice in the world with the news a worrying updated in the battle against global warming.

Observing Greenland from a helicopter, the main problem is one of comprehending scale. I have thought we were skimming low over the waves of a fjord, before noticing the tiny shadow of a seabird far below and realising what I suspected were floating shards of ice were in fact icebergs the size of office blocks.