Many experts are already warning about the melting of the poles, or places like Greenland. This year, the country has again suffered a massive melt caused by the effects of increasingly warmer temperatures. What the experts did not expect is the phenomenon that occurred last weekend.
Since 1950, the rain had not made an appearance in cold Greenland . And this, although it may seem good, in this case it is not. At the summit of Greenland, the temperature has risen above freezing for the third time in ten years. Which meant that last weekend, rain appeared and not snow as it should be logical.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, some areas of Greenland have been 18 degrees warmer than usual while the summit reached up to one degree above freezing.
Intermittent rains
Last Saturday the experts counted up to 13 hours of intermittent rain, rain of water, and not of snow. This dumped 7 billion tons of water onto the ice sheet. “Basically, it rained all day. It was raining every hour, while the staff made their meteorological observations, “Zoe Courville, a research engineer for cold regions, explained to The Washington Post. Courville pointed out that this phenomenon “was the first time it had been seen at the station.”
The thaw is already a reality that is accelerating in Greenland. Already in 2019 the country dumped about 532 billion tons of sea ice into the sea , which was aggravated by a heat wave in July that caused the entire ice surface to begin to melt.
The forecasts for the next few years are not good at all in this regard. According to the United Nations, global warming will continue to be a problem for the melting of the polar ice caps that could occur much faster in the coming years if it continues like this.
In this United Nations report, it was also warned that the planet is on the way to raising its temperature two degrees more than usual, which would cause a total collapse in the Greenland ice sheet.
The rain that appeared after 70 years in the country is yet another example that climate change is accelerating and that the next ten years will be decisive for our planet and future generations.
