The ice melt in Greenland is progressing faster and faster. Because of a heat wave of more than 20 degrees, around eight billion tons of ice flow into the sea every day.
Kobenhagen – The ice sheet on Greenland is melting “massively”. According to information from Danish scientists, this is due to an unusual local heat wave. According to the researchers, around eight billion tons of ice have been melting every day since last Wednesday (July 28, 2021). The research team published the results on the Polar Portal website. Twice as much ice as usual in summer is currently melting away.
Experts fear the trend will accelerate as atmospheric patterns change and temperatures rise. In the north of Greenland, according to the Danish weather authority DMI, temperatures are currently well over 20 degrees Celsius – more than twice as much as the average in the Greenland summer.
The ice on Greenland is melting: the record melt of 2019 has not yet been exceeded
At the small Nerlerit Inaat airport in northeast Greenland, the peak last week was 23.4 degrees Celsius, the highest temperature since the weather records began. So much ice melted that day that the entire US state of Florida was five centimeters under water, the researchers said.
In the summer of 2019, a record melt was registered in Greenland. This value has not yet been set this year, but a much larger area is now affected, it said on the website. According to the researchers from Denmark, the melting event on Wednesday (July 28th, 2021) was the third largest ice loss in one day in Greenland since 1950 – the others took place in 2012 and 2019.
The second largest ice sheet after Antarctica with an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometers, which covers Greenland, is of great concern to scientists, as the warming in the Arctic is three times faster than elsewhere in the world. The melting of the ice sheet began in 1990 and has been accelerating since 2000. According to the researchers, the loss of mass over the past few years is about four times as great as it was before 2000. And the scientists fear that the atmospheric patterns, which include increasingly warmer air, could lead to an amplified feedback loop, which speeds up further melting. The more dark earth is exposed to solar radiation and absorbs it instead of reflecting it like the ice, the faster the ice melts.
Climate change: Ice melt on Greenland usually lasts until September
After a break in 2013 and 2014, the ice melt therefore picked up speed again significantly. According to data, 280 billion tons of Greenland ice per year entered the sea between 2002 and 2016, which corresponds to an additional sea level rise of almost 0.8 millimeters per year. If Greenland were to lose all of its ice, the sea level would rise by six to seven meters, say climate researchers.
According to a European study published in January 2021, sea levels will rise ten to 18 centimeters by 2100 – or 60 percent faster than previously thought – if the Greenland ice sheet melts as quickly as it does now. Due to a relatively cool start to summer with snow and precipitation, the decline in the Greenland ice in 2021 is still within the historical average, according to the Polar Portal. The melting period usually lasts from June to early September. (iwe / afp)
