Aberystwyth University studies threat to ice sheet

Alun Hubbard has been on six field campaigns to Greenland

An expedition will spend the next month examining whether the Greenland ice sheet is close to collapse.

Data from Dr Alun Hubbard and his team from Aberystwyth University will help study the impact of global warming in the region.

Dr Hubbard has spent three years researching the effects of climate change on the country.

There are fears the melting of the entire sheet would raise sea levels globally by about 7m (20ft).

A study in 2009 found the ice sheet was losing its mass faster than in previous years.

The group from Aberystwyth is camping about 100 miles (161km) up the sheet, and will measure its thickness using radar systems towed by skidoos.

Dr Hubbard said he, and his team of five, hoped to understand what the future held for the area.

We wish to understand if and by how much the Greenland ice sheet is melting, speeding up and thinning in response to climate warming Dr Alun Hubbard

He returns for a further three-month stint in Greenland later in June.

He said: "We wish to understand if and by how much the Greenland ice sheet is melting, speeding up and thinning in response to climate warming, whether or not the ice sheet is approaching a state of collapse and if it is, to work out how much this would contribute to global sea level rise in the future."

He explained that his group would study the effect the Arctic ocean and climate warming was having on the "acceleration, thinning and potential wasting of the Greenland ice sheet".

He added: "For this particular trip, I'm away for one month, camped about 100 miles up the ice sheet and will be surveying changes in the surface elevation and thickness of the ice sheet using radar systems towed from skidoos.

Dr Alun Hubbard on a previous trip to Greenland

"We will also be installing and maintaining a network of a dozen high-precision GPS (global positioning systems), automated weather stations and other geophysics instruments to monitor the daily and seasonal movement and fracturing of the ice along with the rate at which it is melting."

Dr Hubbard has leased a helicopter to support his scientists and others across Greenland collaborating on the project.

His team increases to 12 later in the year, which will include researchers from Aberystwyth and Swansea universities.

The £1m project has attracted commercial funding and grants from the Natural Environment Research Council.

Their work is part of a wider project involving researchers from Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.