The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest freshwater ice on the planet. It had 1.8 million square kilometers. Antarctica is the biggest one. The ice sheets started melting in 1990, and since 2000, it has accelerated by a lot. In total, the loss is four times greater than the one before 2000. Global warming is accurate, and it’s here.
The ice sheet of Greenland is going through a massive melting event due to a heatwave of more than 10 degrees Celsius above the normal range. The ice sheet was covering the Arctic territory, and it has melted by 8 billion metric tons a day – twice the normal rate in summer.
The temperatures are at more than 20 degrees Celsius – that’s 68 Fahrenheit – and that’s more than twice the normal average temperature during summer in Greenland.
In the northeast of Greenland, there were 23.4 degrees registered on Thursday, the highest record so far.
This heatwave has affected most of Greenland, and the massive melting event resulted in enough water to cover Florida with two inches of water. Yet, this is not the largest melting event. A bigger one happened in 2019, but do we really want history to repeat itself?
By 2100, the ocean levels would rise up to 18 centimeters at the rate that Greenland is melting now, a study shows. That’s 60% faster than previously thought. Should the Greenland ice sheet completely melt, it would raise the ocean level by 7 meters.
However, the summer in Greenland started cool, with rain and snowfalls, and the melting of the ice sheet is within historical normal. The melting will continue to early September.