Staggering New Data Show Greenland's Ice Is Melting 6 Times Faster Than in The 1980s
CHRIS MOONEY AND BRADY DENNIS, THE WASHINGTON POST
23 APR 2019
https://www.sciencealert.com/greenland-s-accelerating-ice-loss-is-worrisome-to-scientists
Researchers calculate decades of 'scary' Greenland ice meltingby Ivan Couronne
phys.org
Now, researchers have recalculated the amount of ice lost in Greenland since 1972, the year the first Landsat satellites entered orbit to regularly photograph the Danish territory.
"When you look at several decades, it is best to sit back in your chair before looking at the results, because it is a bit scary to see how fast it is changing," said French glaciologist Eric Rignot, of the University of California at Irvine.
Greenland Ice Sheet Researcher Warns: "We Should Prepare for What Is Coming"
A sheet of ice three times the size of Texas is melting at a rapidly accelerating rate.
inverse.com
"glaciers have always released ice into the ocean. What’s different now is that it’s happening more often — and according to a studyreleased Monday in PNAS, it’s occurring at an increasingly rapid rate."
The Greenland Ice Sheet has undergone rapid and irreversible change, and they can pinpoint exactly when the climate of the planet took a terrible turn.
“Going from a 20-year-long record to a 40-year-long record shows us a transition from a climate dominated by natural variability to a climate dominated by climate warming from human emissions of greenhouse gases,” Rignot says. “Over that time period, the mass loss increased sixfold.”
"The data show that in the ‘70s, the Greenland Ice Sheet gained an average of 47 gigatonnes of ice per year. But by the 1980s, it was losing an average of 50 gigatonnes of ice annually. Rignot explains that this is the time when “the climate of the planet drifted off its natural variability to become dominated by warming from human activity.”
Losing ice is now the new normal. Since the ‘80s, the rate of ice loss has increased sixfold. From 2010 to 2018, the average loss was 290 gigatonnes of ice per year.
This is a matter to take extremely seriously. If all of the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, the sea level would rise about 20 feet. This study estimates that since 1972, Greenland ice loss has raised the sea level by 13.7 millimeters, and half of that rise has happened just in the last eight years."
They also predict that the mass changes in the northern part of Greenland will have the greatest influence on sea levelrise because of its large reserve of ice above sea level and “the potential for manyfold increase in ice discharge.” Rising sea levels expose coastlines to greater risks of flooding, erosion, and hazard from storms. Higher sea levels are already pushing storm surges farther inland than they once did — an endangerment to human life. |
