Dear Eos:
At the edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet, glacial meltwater carves new rivers into the Arctic landscape. These icy flows carry sediments, nutrients, and freshwater to the ocean, where they alter ecosystems and carbon cycling.
Here, at Tyroler Fjord in Northeast Greenland National Park, two researchers wade into a meltwater river to collect samples, capturing the chemical fingerprints of a changing climate. Each bottle of meltwater offers clues about how Greenland’s retreating ice is reshaping the Arctic Ocean and, ultimately, our global carbon balance.
—Henry C. Henson, Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark; and Isolde C. Puts, Umeå Marine Sciences Centre and Department of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden