Poppy seed found under ice sheet shows Greenland is vulnerable to dramatic melting

Scientists have recovered an intact poppy seed and other plant remains buried under three kilometers of ice in the heart of Greenland. The discovery indicates that during a previous warm era, Greenland was almost entirely free of ice – an ominous precedent on a rapidly warming planet.

The poppy seed, as well as the compound eye of an insect, broken willow twigs and moss spores were found in sediment recovered from the tip of an ice core that had been stored since 1993. “We now have direct evidence that not only the ice disappeared, but plants and insects lived there”, said the main author Paul Bierman of the University of Vermont. “And that is indisputable. You don’t need to rely on calculations or models.”

THE discoverypublished in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencessuggests that the Greenland ice sheet melted almost completely sometime in the last million years. Writing in The conversationthe authors warn that humans are “on track to warm the Arctic and Greenland beyond the temperatures they have experienced for millions of years.” If the Greenland ice sheet were to thaw today, they note, sea levels would rise by more than 20 feet over the next few centuries.

“Look at Boston, New York, Miami, Mumbai or pick your coastal city around the world and add 20 feet to sea level,” Bierman said. “Go underwater. Don’t buy a beach house.”

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