The Greenland ice sheet has been melting at an increasing rate over the past few decades, contributing to global sea level rise and possibly the slowing of the Gulf Stream current in the North Atlantic.

Glaciers that end in the ocean have seen some of the fastest rates of retreat, since comparatively mild ocean waters are destabilizing the ice from below, speeding the ice's one-way trip into the sea.

Now comes new evidence that the Greenland coast continues to transform regional maps, with a new island created at the ocean boundary between the Steenstrup Glacier and Kier Glacier in northwest Greenland.

A new island formed as the Steenstrup Glacier pulls back between 2013 and 2014. Image: Landsat image via AGU

According to glacier researcher Mauri Pelto of Nichols College, the retreat of these two glaciers from 1999 to 2014 has led to several new islands, one of which emerged just last year. In a blog post for the American Geophysical Union, a society representing earth scientists worldwide, the Steenstrup Glacier has retreated by 6.21 miles, or 10 kilometers, during the past 60 years.

In 2012, there was just a narrow glacier connection with the unnamed island known by the mountain that rests on it called Tugtuligssup Sarqardlerssuua. This connection lasted for only two years before the ice retreated further last year, severing the island's link to mainland Greenland.

Before that, the island had been firmly within these glaciers' grasp, and may have helped anchor the glacier in place, Pelto told Mashable in an interview. Without its roots, the glacier may speed up its rate of retreat.

“These islands can be anchors as well, so when a glacier loses contact with an island there tends to be a fairly rapid retreat,” he said.

In contrast to when giant glaciers retreat up fjords, new islands are "a very visible feature" if glacial melt, "something new” that was created from the melt, Pelto said. "It would never have been shown as an island before, but it certainly has been an island you would think in the past. It all depends on your time frame.”

It's more accurate, perhaps, to say this was an island "waiting to be released" from its frozen clutches, Pelto added.

Closeup of the lack of a connection to the Steenstrup Glacier in 2014. Image: AGU/Mauri Pelto

The island's formation isn't a new phenomenon solely related to manmade global warming, however. Throughout history, these islands may have been connected and then severed from mainland Greenland many different times as ice has expanded and retracted. However, past glacier retreats had more natural climate origins, such as variations in Earth's orbit.

But the majority of global climate change in recent decades has been caused by human emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, from burning fossil fuels.

According to Pelto, the red arrow in these images indicates the ice front of the Steenstrup Glacier at Tugtuligssup Sarqardlerssuua.

Map showing the pullback of two Greenland glaciers, which created new islands in the process. Image: Mauri Pelto/AGU

"In 2014 Steenstrup Glacier at the red arrow has separated from Tugtuligssup Sarqardlerssuua," Pelto writes. "From 2013 to 2014 the embayment is spreading inland and north."

Pelto said the retreat of the glacier here matches patterns of glacial retreat and new island formation at other Greenland outlet glaciers, such as Alison Glacier and Upernavik Glacier. "The map of Greenland is continues to change at an accelerated rate," he said. Pelto has previously identified other islands forming in the same area from retreating ice.

As for the upcoming melt season, its unclear how much ice will be lost in northwest Greenland. But the winter wasn't particularly kind to the region's glaciers, with data showing ice mass loss in northwest Greenland from September 2014 through the end of April 2015.