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Glacial Pace

The science crew aboard M/V Viking Madsalex waits in Sermilik Fjord in southeastern Greenland for a helicopter that will take them closer to Helheim Glacier, at the head of the fjord. Since 2008, a research team lead by WHOI physical oceanographer Fiamma Straneo has built a record of ocean properties at the margins of this large glacier to study the link between ocean and ice sheet changes. In a 2014 review paper published in Nature, Straneo and co-author Patrick Heimbach of MIT describe how increased submarine melting has accelerated the loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, contributing to one-quarter of global sea level rise over the last twenty years.(Photo by Will Ostrom, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)