Greenland Lost 8.5 Billion Tons Of Ice In A Day, Enough To Drown Andhra Pradesh In 2-Inch Water

Greenland¡¯s ice sheet lost 8.5 billion metric tons of surface mass in just one day, enough to cover the US state of Florida in two inches of water, or approximately India's Andra Pradesh (Florida Area: 170,312 square kilometres vs Andhra Pradesh areaL 160,205 square kilometres).

Polar Portal

Also Read: Greenland's Ice Sheet On The Verge Of Tipping, Sea Levels May Rise By 23 Feet

Reported first by Polar Portal, Greenland's melting was a result of extreme heatwaves in northern Greenland that spiked the temperatures to over 68 degrees Fahrenheit. This was twice the average summer temperature, as highlighted by the Danish Meteorological Institute.

High temperatures on July 28 resulted in the third-largest second-day loss of ice in Greenland since 1950; the second and first biggest single-day losses occurred in 2012 and 2019. Greenland¡¯s yearly ice loss began in 1990. However, with today's temperatures, it has accelerated to over four times the levels before the year 2000.

Polar Portal¡¯s researchers highlighted that even though this year¡¯s impact wasn¡¯t as dreadful as the one seen in 2019, in terms of gigatons, the area over which melting takes place is even a bit larger than two years ago.

The US National Snow and Ice Data Centre have already warned that global sea levels could rise by an estimated 6 metres if all of Greenland¡¯s ice gets melted.

Also Read: Greenland Ice Sheet Has Reached Point Of No Return, Thanks To Global Warming

According to a climate scientist at the University of Liege in Belgium, Xavier Fettweis, on his Twitter handle (highlighted by LiveScience) around 22 billion metric tons of ice melted from Greenland¡¯s ice sheet on July 28, with 12 billion metric tons making its way into the ocean. Another 10 billion metric tons of melted ice was reabsorbed by the snowpack due to the recent heavy snowfall.

Reuters

What caused the sudden rise in temperature?

Fettweis links the cause of the acceleration in melting to an atmospheric event, called an anticyclone, over the continent. To the uninitiated, Anticyclones are regions of high pressure that cause the air contained within them to sink, warming just like during the summers and creating conditions where hot weather can exist in an area for a long time.

Also Read: Greenland Lost 2 Billion Tons Of Ice In One Day, And Why It Should Terrify All Of Us

The melting season in Greenland usually goes from June to early September. This year¡¯s melting season has already caused the loss of 100 billion metric tons of ice melt into the ocean, according to Danish government data.