Newswise — Douglas A. Wiens, Professor and Chair, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis; email: [email protected]; office: 314-935-6517. Can be reached by cell during "reasonable hours" (Pacific time zone): 314-348-9700.

"The surface melt may have happened in the past, but there are a lot of other data showing that Greenland is currently losing ice mass, compared to 150 years ago," Wiens says. "So its not in steady-state, and the melt is part of a larger picture of the warming of the Arctic region."

Wiens specializes in seismology and has lately been using seismology to measure slip in ice streams traveling toward the sea in Antarctica.More: https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/12756.aspx; https://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/11833.aspx