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Happy Earth Day

April 22, 2014

We call it Earth, but our home planet is nearly covered by water. The ocean covers more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface, while another 10 percent is locked in frozen water in the form of glaciers, like this one in Greenland. These vast frozen rivers store more than half of the world’s fresh water, and are many feet (sometimes miles) thick. Greenland’s glaciers are also retreating; over the past two decades, ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has increased four-fold, contributing one-quarter of observed global sea level rise. WHOI scientists are among those at the forefront of investigating the role the ocean plays in ice loss and glacier retreat.(Photo by Amy Kukulya, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)