Greenland Ice Sheet Summary

774 Words4 Pages

The article that I decided to research and write about is called “Rusty Waters”, written by Rob Raiswell. This paper discusses that the Greenland Ice Sheet plays an important role in how the North Atlantic Ocean receives iron and how this iron can be utilized by phytoplankton. The scientists came up with this idea through a series of tests, observations and critical thinking. Using different samples of meltwater from glaciers in the Greenland ice sheet, they determined the amount of iron available for plankton. Next they followed the path of the meltwater and used critical thinking by considering different factors that could increase or decrease the iron content. This glacier does not empty directly into the ocean, however, it first goes into a lake and then into a fjord. This helped the scientists have more evidence on why they think iron is being transported from glaciers. In addition, they noticed that phytoplankton bloom …show more content…

This article discusses the increase in meltwater coming from the Greenland Ice sheet due to global warming and how this affects the number of nutrients that get delivered to the ocean. The scientist’s in this study accumulated four years of data which is consistent with and backs up their hypothesis. The data the scientists collected was from the Leverett Glacier which is located in the Greenland Ice Sheet. They found a strong correlation between the amount of meltwater and the number of nutrients. When meltwater increases, nutrients seem to increase as well. They believe that due to higher temperatures, there will be a higher number of nutrients because of an increase in meltwater coming from these glaciers. I chose this article because it relates to the main article I wrote. Both articles discuss the meltwater coming from glaciers and how this meltwater is important in the transport of nutrients into the