sea levels

Ice Melt In Greenland

March 12, 2019 By EarthWise 1 Comment

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences warns that Greenland’s ice Is melting much faster than previously thought. The ice loss rapidly accelerated around 2002-2003 and by 2012 the annual loss was nearly four times the rate in 2003.

Most of the new ice melt is in southwest Greenland, a part of the island that wasn’t known to be losing ice that rapidly and is not where most of the large glaciers are in Greenland. The loss is coming from the land-fast ice sheet itself.

Data from NASA satellites and GPS stations scattered around Greenland’s coast shows that between 2002 and 2016, Greenland lost approximately 280 billion tons of ice per year. That is enough melt to cover the entire states of Florida and New York hip deep in meltwater, as well as drowning Washington, D.C. and one or two other small states.

Global warming of just 1 degree Celsius is the main driver behind this massive meltdown of ice. The temperature rise coupled with a negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation causes rapid surface melt of the ice sheet during summers. The Oscillation is a natural, irregular change in atmospheric pressure that brings warm, sunny weather to the western side of Greenland during its negative phase.

The Greenland ice sheet is 2 miles thick in some places and contains enough ice to raise sea levels 23 feet if it all melted. The melting Greenland ice is already slowing the Gulf Stream, which is wreaking havoc with European weather. If we don’t get a handle on global temperature rise, things are only going to get worse.

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Greenland’s ice is melting four times faster than thought—what it means

Photo, posted April 21, 2017, courtesy of Markus Trienke via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Melting Ice In Greenland

January 18, 2019 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest ice body in the world after the Antarctic ice sheet. It covers over 660,000 square miles, more than twice the size of the state of Texas. But it is melting.

According to a new study published in the journal Nature, the Greenland ice sheet is melting faster today than at any point in the last 350 years. A team of U.S. and European researchers analyzed more than three centuries of melt patterns in ice cores from western Greenland. They then linked this historical data to modern observations of melting and runoff across the entire ice sheet.

According to the researchers, from an historical perspective, today’smelt rates are off the charts. There is a 50% increase in total ice sheet melt water runoff since the start of the industrial era and a 30% increase since the 20th century alone.

Over the last 20 years, melt intensity has increased 250 to 575 percent compared to pre-industrial melt rates. The period from 2004-2013, the most recent decade analyzed, experienced a more sustained and greater magnitude of melt than in any previous 10-year period in the 350-year record.

The Greenland ice sheet is the largest single contributor to global sea level rise. It is adding 72 cubic miles of meltwater to the world’s oceans every year.

The melting of the Greenland ice sheet is accelerating which is a frightening prospect. If the sheet were to melt in its entirety, global sea levels would rise by 23 feet. The world needs to do whatever it can to keep that doomsday scenario from happening.

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