An international team of polar ecologists, geographers, and marine scientists has found that global warming has, over the past 20 years, melted enough glacier ice in Greenland that an additional 1,620 kilometers of that country’s coastline is now exposed to the elements.
In their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the group describes how they compared satellite imagery of the northern hemisphere over the years 2000 to 2020 to track receding glaciers. Simon Cook, with the University of Dundee, in the U.K., has published a News & Views piece in the same journal issue outlining the work done by the team on this new effort.
Over the past several decades, climate scientists have found that the world’s glaciers are growing ever smaller as the planet continues to warm, due to humankind’s inability to curb greenhouse gas emissions. More studies have shown that Greenland has been experiencing the most glacier loss. In this new work, the researchers looked at glacier loss in a new way—by pointing out land that is uncovered as the ice melts.
By tracking changes to glaciers using satellite imagery of the northern hemisphere from 2000 to 2020, the research team found that they were able to track coastline exposure as ice flows to the sea became smaller. In adding them all together, they found that 2,466 kilometers of coastline have been exposed over just the past 20 years. They also found that approximately 66% of that newly exposed coastline was in Greenland.
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Spatial distribution and examples of new and lost coastlines in the Arctic from 2000 to 2020. Credit: Nature Climate Change (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02282-5
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Map and examples of new islands detected from the period 2000–2020 in the Arctic. Credit: Nature Climate Change (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02282-5
The researchers were able to measure the newly exposed coastline down to the individual glaciers—melting of Zachariae Isstrom, has for example, led to the exposure of 81 kilometers of coastline, twice that of any other glacier in the northern hemisphere.
The research team also found that melting glaciers and ice flows have revealed 35 islands larger than 0.5 km2 that were, until recently, hidden by ice. Twenty-nine of those islands are part of Greenland. They also noted that 13 of the islands do not appear on any map, which means no country has yet claimed them—a finding that may lead to jockeying by nations intent on gaining access to any natural resources that may be found on them.
More information:
Jan Kavan et al, New coasts emerging from the retreat of Northern Hemisphere marine-terminating glaciers in the twenty-first century, Nature Climate Change (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02282-5
Simon J. Cook, Glaciers give way to new coasts, Nature Climate Change (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-025-02275-4
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Global warming exposes 1,620 kilometers of new Greenland coastline (2025, March 26)
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