Nearly 20 degrees in parts of Greenland, heat leads to loss of ice sheet mass

Against the soaring temperatures of the past week, van den Broek emphasizes, there is a relatively cool start to summer. “In the 2012 record year, the total loss of mass was much greater.”

Even limited global warming in the coming decades will have a devastating effect on the ice sheet. “Mass loss increases squared with increasing temperature,” says Van den Broeke.

faster and faster

last year 89 polar scientists have concluded that Greenland’s ice sheet is melting faster since 2000. About 33 billion tons of ice were lost annually in the 1990s, and this has risen to 254 billion tons annually in the past decade. Not a year has passed since 2000 when the net amount of ice increased.

The researchers estimated that the current amount of ice melt in Greenland is causing the global sea level to rise by 0.7 mm annually. This is about a quarter of the total amount of sea level rise, which is about 3 mm. If the entire Greenland ice sheet melted, it would raise the global sea level by 7 metres.

It looks like the temperature in Greenland is set to drop again in the coming days. The thawing season usually ends in August.