Some researchers of University of Kansas are getting international recognition for their work on a global warming study, KMBC’s Bev Chapman reported recently. KU is one of two schools out of 160 applications that received funding for its work from the National Science Foundation.
They are faculty and students at KU’s Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets. The group is measuring the thickness of ice in Greenland and Antarctica to see how it is melting.
The researchers helped determine that glaciers in parts of Greenland are melting twice as fast as scientists predicted, and that melting inside the glacier is reaching bedrock and sending ice out to sea. “It’s not just melting away, but huge chunks of ice are flowing into the oceans,” KU’s Pannir Kanagaratnam said. Kanagaratnam was part of a team that measured the ice last May.
The group is also working in Antarctica, trying to determine the surface of the rock that’s holding that ice in place.
