Greenland Ice Sheet Melted 17 Times Faster During May Heatwave

Greenland Ice Sheet Melted 17 Times Faster During May Heatwave

Nilim Kashyap Barthakur

Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at a pace 17 times faster than average, driven by record-breaking temperatures in May that shattered climate norms across Iceland and Greenland.

The rapid warming threatens infrastructure and communities in both regions, underscoring the urgent need for climate adaptation. The unprecedented melting was linked to record-breaking temperatures across Iceland in May.

“Temperatures over Iceland as observed this May are record-breaking, more than 13 degrees Celsius hotter than the 1991-2020 average May daily maximum temperatures,” the WWA stated. In Iceland, this unusual heat triggered bituminous bleeding on roads, creating hazardous driving conditions.

Meanwhile, in Greenland, the rapid warming caused sea ice to break up, jeopardizing communities that rely on it for hunting, fishing, and travel. WWA’s analysis underscores the role of climate change in these extreme events. Their findings indicate that the heatwave was about 3°C hotter and 40 times more likely to occur due to global warming

.Even as climate models tend to underestimate actual temperature increases, projections show that if global temperatures rise by 2.6°C, such events could become twice as likely and even more severe.

The meteorological institute confirmed that 84% of weather stations throughout the country recorded new temperature records during the month.

Greenland Ice Sheet

Greenland Ice Sheet, is the single ice sheet or glacier covering about 80 percent of the island of Greenland and the largest ice mass in the Northern Hemisphere, globally second in size to only the ice mass that covers Antarctica. It extends 1,380 miles (2,220 km) north-south, has a maximum width of 680 miles (1,094 km) near its northern margin, and has an average thickness of about 5,000 feet (1,500 metres).

The Greenland Ice Sheet extends from approximately 60° N to 80° N and thus is not in the polar zone, unlike the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Cold waters of mostly Arctic origin protect the Greenland Ice Sheet against the temperate Atlantic waters from the southeast. In volume, it contains 12 percent of the world’s glacier ice, and, if it completely melted, sea level  would rise 24 feet (7.4 meters).

Greenland is the world’s largest island, situated between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, with two-thirds of the island north of the Arctic Circle. By area, the Greenland Ice Sheet is second only to Antarctica and has been subject to rapid melting due to global warming. 

Global warming is currently causing the melting of glaciers and ice sheets all over the world, both in the polar regions and in mountains. The Arctic is the most rapidly warming region on Earth and, consequently, faces the highest rate of ice melting.

Greenland is the only landmass covered by a permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica. The ice sheet covers about three-quarters of the island. Despite this, and unlike Antarctica, it is inhabited. Therefore, the loss of Greenland’s ice will not only cause a global rise in the sea level, but will also irrevocably change the lifestyle of the local population

Climate change

The Greenland Ice Sheet was in the past perceived to be in a relatively stable position and its demise was thought to require thousands of years of melting under warm climatic conditions. This premise has been questioned in light of the recent change.Assessing the sensitivity and response of the Greenland Ice Sheet to the current warming of Earth’s ocean and atmosphere is today an issue of tremendous scientific, societal and political significance.

The Greenland Ice Sheet contains enough ice to raise global sea levels by approximately 7 m. Assessment of climate change using an ice sheet model forced with outputs from a global climate model suggests that global warming of 3°C is a critical threshold that could lead to a complete demise of the ice sheet.

This threshold will most likely be exceeded before 2100 unless emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses are stabilised and reduced to level of year 2000 before 2050.

Greenhouse gas reduction will require an economic outlook consistent with greenhouse gas emissions scenario with a global emphasis on resource-efficient technologies and global solutions to economic, social and environmental sustainability.

The alternative is less rapid economic development with emphasis on local solutions and environmental protection. So far, global economic growth remains fossil-fuel intensive and this economic outlook is not consistent with a sustainable long-term presence of an ice sheet in Greenland.

The onset of a demise of the Greenland Ice Sheet may be tied to a predictable magnitude of global warming, but there is currently no consensus about the rate of demise.A demise of the ice sheet controlled by surface melting mainly could take several thousand years. This scenario is, however, unlikely on the basis of recent rapid change of the flow speed of marine-terminating outlet glaciers.

This is important because the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica store about two-thirds of all the fresh water on Earth. They are losing ice due to the ongoing warming of Earth’s surface and ocean. Meltwater coming from these ice sheets is responsible for about one-third of the global average rise in sea level since 1993.

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