The Arctic’s glaciers are retreating, exposing new coastlines that could trigger tsunamis

Shrinking glaciers exposed 2,500 kilometres of coastline and 35 ‘new’ islands in the Arctic between 2000 and 2020, new research has found. 

Scientists examined satellite images of more than 1,700 ice caps in Greenland, Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, the Russian Arctic, Iceland and Svalbard over this 20-year period.

Their analysis shows that 85 per cent of these glaciers retreated, uncovering an average of 123 kilometres of new coastline per year.

This is “fundamentally altering the nature of Arctic landscapes”, according to Dr Simon Cook, a senior lecturer in environmental sciences at the University of Dundee.

The research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, links the acceleration in glacier melt to rising ocean and air temperatures.

As global temperatures rise, glaciers are experiencing increasingly rapid retreat. The base of the glacier, known as the ‘terminus’, begins to melt, shrinking the overall length of the ice cap. 

Marine-terminating glaciers - which flow into the ocean - often reveal new areas of coastline when they melt.

From satellite imagery of 1,704 marine-terminating glaciers in the northern hemisphere, the researchers mapped the 2,466 kilometres of coastline that were exposed between 2000 and 2020.

The study shows that the rate of freshly revealed coastline varies significantly between regions. 

Just 101 glaciers were responsible for more than half of the total additional coastline length, the authors found.

Two-thirds of the new coastline was located in Greenland. The retreat of the Zachariae Isstrom glacier in the northeast of the country formed 81 kilometres of new coastline - more than twice as much as any other glacier in the study.

Melting glaciers also revealed 35 new islands with areas larger