The Times Atlas of the World, published by HarperCollins, exaggerated the rate of Greenland's ice loss in its thirteenth edition last week, scientists are saying. It said that Greenland lost 15 percent of its ice cover over the past 12 years, based on information from the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado in the United States. The Greenland ice sheet is the second biggest in the world.
"We believe that the figure of a 15 percent decrease in permanent ice cover since the publication of the previous atlas 12 years (ago) is both incorrect and misleading," said Poul Christoffersen, glaciologist at the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) at the University of Cambridge. "We concluded that a sizable portion of the area mapped as ice-free in the Atlas is clearly still ice-covered."
"These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to the reality of rapid change in Greenland," said Jeffrey S. Kargel, senior research scientist at the University of Arizona.
World Atlas ice loss claim exaggerated: scientists by Nina Chestney, Reuters
