It is evident that our planet is going through a rough phase these days. After the virus outbreak and floods situation everywhere, now Greenland has recorded a temperature as high as 10.7 degrees Celsius in August, which has resulted in massive ice meltdown. Greenland is probably experiencing one of the harshest summers in the history of its existence, which means the ice there is melting faster than ever.
As per reports, nearly 440 billion tons of ice is expected to melt from Greenland’s ginormous ice sheet by the end of the summers this year, which is not a good news. In simple words, the melted ice water is enough to flood Pennsylvania or a country the size of Greece by a foot (nearly 35 cm).
According to scientists, in the year 2019, the ice loss was more than twice the annual average since 2003. And this year (2020), from July 31 to August 3, nearly 58 billion tons ice melted, which is more than 40 billion tons more than the average for this time of year.
A fact about Greenland’s ice sheet is that it is about two miles thick in places. And hypothetically, if all the ice melts, sea levels would increase by nearly 24 ft (7.5 m).
According to the Associated Press, the southeastern edge of the enormous frozen island is hit badly. Helheim, which is among Greenland’s fastest melting glaciers, has reduced by about 10 km since 2005.
Josh Willis, a NASA Oceanographer, who studies melting ice in Greenland, said that what’s happening now is an amalgam of man-made climate change and also created by nature. However, the weather patterns are quite weird, the scientist said.
Tom Mote, ice scientist at the University of Georgia told the Associated Press, “If you look at climate model projections, we can expect to see larger areas of the ice sheet experiencing meltdown for longer duration of the year and greater mass loss going forward. There’s every reason to believe that years that look like this will become more common.”