Greenland is going through one of the harshest summers on record with the morning temperature reaching as high as 10.7 degrees Celsius in August. And, the impact of it is showing - the ice in Greenland is melting faster than ever.?
By the end of this summer, about 440 billion tons of ice is expected to melt or calved off Greenland¡¯s giant ice sheet. That¡¯s enough water to flood Pennsylvania or the country of Greece about a foot (35 centimeters) deep.
AP
Scientists have also found that, in just the five days from July 31 to Aug. 3, more than 58 billion tons melted from the surface. That¡¯s over 40 billion tons more than the average for this time of year.?
According to the Associated Press, one of the places hit hardest is on the southeastern edge of the giant frozen island: Helheim, one of Greenland¡¯s fastest-retreating glaciers, has shrunk about 10 kilometers since scientists came here in 2005.
Several scientists, such as NASA oceanographer Josh Willis, who is also in Greenland, studying melting ice from above, said what¡¯s happening is a combination of man-made climate change and natural but weird weather patterns. Glaciers here do shrink in the summer and grow in the winter, but nothing like this year.
AP
Summit Station, a research camp nearly 3,200 meters and far north, warmed to above freezing twice this year for a record total of 16.5 hours. Before this year, that station was above zero for only 6.5 hours in 2012, once in 1889 and also in the Middle Ages.
¡°If you look at climate model projections, we can expect to see larger areas of the ice sheet experiencing melt for longer duration of the year and greater mass loss going forward,¡± Tom Mote, an ice scientist at the University of Georgia told The Associated Press.
¡°There¡¯s every reason to believe that years that look like this will become more common.¡±
A NASA satellite found that Greenland¡¯s ice sheet lost about 255 billion metric tons of ice a year between 2003 and 2016, with the loss rate generally getting worse over that period. Nearly all of the 28 Greenland glaciers that Danish climate scientist Ruth Mottram measured are retreating, especially Helheim.
AP
At Helheim, the ice, snow and water seem to go on and on, sandwiched by bare dirt mountains that now show no signs of ice but get covered in the winter. The only thing that gives a sense of scale is the helicopter carrying Holland and his team. It¡¯s dwarfed by the landscape, an almost imperceptible red speck against the ice cliffs where Helheim stops and its remnants begin.
Those ice cliffs are somewhere between 225 feet (70 meters) and 328 feet (100 meters) high. Just next to them are Helheim¡¯s remnants ¡ª sea ice, snow and icebergs ¡ª forming a mostly white expanse, with a mishmash of shapes and textures. Frequently water pools amid that white, glimmering a near-fluorescent blue that resembles windshield wiper fluid or Kool-Aid.
AP
As pilot Martin Norregaard tries to land his helicopter on the broken-up part of what used to be glacier ¡ª a mush called a melange ¡ª he looks for ice specked with dirt, a sign that it¡¯s firm enough for the chopper to set down on. Pure white ice could conceal a deep crevasse that leads to a cold and deadly plunge.
Holland and team climb out to install radar and GPS to track the ice movement and help explain why salty, warm, once-tropical water attacking the glacier¡¯s ¡°underbelly¡± has been bubbling to the surface
¡°It takes a really long time to grow an ice sheet, thousands and thousands of years, but they can be broken up or destroyed quite rapidly,¡± Holland said.
AP
Holland, like NASA¡¯s Willis, suspects that warm, salty water that comes in part from the Gulf Stream in North America is playing a bigger role than previously thought in melting Greenland¡¯s ice. And if that¡¯s the case, that¡¯s probably bad news for the planet, because it means faster and more melting and higher sea level rise. Willis said that by the year 2100, Greenland alone could cause 3 or 4 feet (more than 1 meter) of sea level rise.