Greenland glaciers can restore its thickness in the next decade, as its melting cycles, says the study, published in the Danish scientists in the journal Science.

In late July, the specialists of the National aerospace Agency of the USA (NASA) with reference to satellite data reported that the melting covered 97% of the Greenland ice sheet, whereas the average for the last 30 years the area of the melting ice of the total area of the glacier did not exceed 50%. Glacier currently covers about 80% of Greenland and contains about one fifth of the world's supply of ice. According to scientists, if it melts completely, it will lead to a rise in global sea level by 6.4 meters.

However, scientists from the University of Copenhagen claim of the complete disappearance of the Greenland ice early to speak, because the melting cyclical.

"The average air temperature has increased and the growth rate of melting glaciers is quite understandable. Most scientists in this regard predict that the glaciers will soon melt completely and will cause significant sea level rise around the world, but we came to the conclusion that talk about it sooner - the melting cyclical, and in the next ten years, the thickness of the ice should stabilize" - says the author of the research, fellow of the University of Copenhagen Kurt Kjar (Kurt Kj?r).

According to the data of meteorological observations, the rapid melting of the ice this year coincided with unusually strong fronts warm air, which ruled over the island from the end of may. The last front started to dissipate over Greenland on June 16.

After analyzing the data on the thickness of the Greenland ice for the last 30 years, scientists have concluded that there are cycles of active melting length of about eight years, after which the process is stabilized, and the ice is restored. During the period of observations from the air and from space scientists were able to trace two of the cycle, however, retrospective models show that this process occurred before.

"We used photos taken from the air in the 1980's, to make a three-dimensional digital elevation model and compare it with the satellite images subsequent years. It turned out that the thickness of the ice was much reduced from 1985 to 1992, then this process stopped, and ice during the winter began to restore its mass. The next period of active melting began in 2002 and continues to this day" - says the study's authors.

According to the study, published in 2009 in the Geophysical Research Letters, for the period between April 2002 and February 2009 Greenland glacier "lost" about 1.6 thousand cubic kilometers.

"If you create a predictive model based on the data in the short term, it seems that the process is irreversible because the model is the axiom that the Greenland ice melt continuously. But actually because of the existence of these cycles is difficult to predict how sea levels will rise in the coming decades, and during the next hundred years. We believe that based on the data that science today has, we cannot say that the Greenland ice doomed to extinction" - says Kjar.