The ice on Greenland is acting strangely. Researchers believe they finally know why

Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet, there are giant, swirling plume-like structures. 

These have puzzled researchers for over a decade.

Researchers at the University of Bergen now believe they have cracked the mystery by using the same mathematics that is used to understand how continents drift apart.

"As wild as it is fascinating"

A new research article suggests that these mysterious plumes are caused by thermal convection.

This involves a kind of slow, churning movement within the ice, driven by temperature differences deep inside it.

Thermal convection is a process often associated with the Earth’s fiery mantle. 

”We typically think of ice as a solid material, so the discovery that parts of the Greenland ice sheet actually undergo thermal convection, resembling a boiling pot of pasta, is as wild as it is fascinating,” says Andreas Born.

He is a professor at the University of Bergen's Department of Earth Science and the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research.

Born has researched ice sheets in the Northern hemisphere for over 15 years, and is co-author of the new study.

Hidden under kilometres of ice

“Finding that thermal convection can happen within an ice sheet goes slightly against our intuition and expectations," says Robert Law, a glaciologist and first author of the study.

He explains that since ice is at least a million times softer than the Earth’s mantle, the physics actually makes sense.

"It’s like an exciting freak of nature,” he says. 

Law says that this discovery could be key to improving the accuracy of models used to calculate future sea-level rise.

Does not necessarily mean the ice will melt faster

Although the deep ice could be around ten times softer than previously assumed, this does not necessarily mean that the ice will melt faster.

“Improving our understanding of ice physics is a really major way to be more certain about the future,” says Law.

He explains that on its own, softer ice does not necessarily mean that melting will happen faster or that sea levels will rise more quickly. More studies are needed to say anything about the isolated effect of soft ice.

Greenland often appears in the news. Mining, geopolitics, and the consequences of climate change are among the topics that keep recurring.

Law notes that their findings do not predict an impending disaster on Greenland or elsewhere, but they do highlight how complex and dynamic Greenland truly is.

“Greenland and its nature is truly special. The ice sheet there is over one thousand years old, and it's the only ice sheet on Earth to have a culture and permanent population at its margins,” he says. “The more we learn about the hidden processes inside the ice, the better prepared we’ll be for the changes coming to coastlines around the world.”

Reference: 

Law et al. Exploring the conditions conducive to convection within the Greenland Ice Sheet, The Cryosphere, 2025. DOI: 10.5194/tc-20-1071-2026

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