Greenland's Ice Sheet is Melting faster than Ever

 

The Greenland Ice Sheet is the world's second-largest glacier. Greenland is also the world's largest island. Greenland holds enough ice to raise sea level by 7 m. The ice sheet covers around 80% of Greenland's total area. The ice sheet has a thickness ranging from 2 km to 3 km. We all know that global warming has caused polar ice to melt. Apart from the ice of Antarctic regions and the Arctic regions, Greenland's ice is also melting at an alarming rate.

The melting of polar ice caps is a natural process. The ice sheet was melting for the last 10 to 11 million years. But global warming and ozone holes accelerated the melting process. These sheets and glaciers were not made to melt at such a high rate. A recent study states that Greenland is melting at an accelerating rate. The natural melting process has almost no effect on sea level, but this accelerated melting will surely affect the sea level. Even if the sea level will rise by few inches, most of the coastal cities will be in danger of submerging and here we are talking about raise in meters. Many small islands and coastal cities have already started to sink. 

Greenland has lost around 580 billion tonnes of ice in 2019. This was the highest record of melting till today. The melted ice was enough to cover the whole of California with 1.2 meters of water. This means just by melting Greenland's ice sheets, 530 trillion of water is added to the oceans. This melted ice has increased the sea level by 0.06 inches. This small number will create a very huge problem in future. This metric shocked all the researchers around the world. Since 1993, Greenland's average temperature is increased by 1.7-degree celsius. It is predicted that the temperature will further be increased by 3 degrees to 8 degree Celsius by the end of this century. 

Climate models suggest that the entire ice of Greenland will melt in the next few centuries. However, one study says that if this rate of melting continues then by the end of the 21st century, the sea level will be risen by 1 to 1.5 meter. From 1980 to 2002, the rate of melting is increased by 16%. 

Besides increasing the sea level, the melting ice also adds a large volume of freshwater to the ocean which eventually damage the ocean water circulation and currents.  Global warming is also increasing the growth of algae on the ice. These algae blanket the ice, resulting in more absorption of sunlight and eventually increasing the melting rate. Hundreds of new small rivers of freshwater have been formed in past for decades due to melting. These rivers find their way to the ocean, adding a large amount of water to the oceans. In 2001, the Petermann glacier in northern Greenland lost about 85 sq km of ice. In 2005, the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier lost about 95 sq km of ice. This event created a global concern and worldwide awareness. Again in 2012, the Petermann glacier lost a 70 km long ice sheet. From 2002 to 2012, the Greenland ice sheet has lost 0.1% of its total mass. Another study says that 3900 gigatonnes of ice of Greenland have been melted from 1992 to 2018. This means the average ice loss is 360 Gt/year. The rate is increasing each year by 25 to 29 Gt/year.

Until 1980, Greenland was the only region showing cooling rather than warming. But in the last 5 decades, this cooling is replaced by continuous warming due to global warming. However, in 2020 and 2021, the rate of melting is slowed down. But this will not last for a longer time. These ice sheets will again start melting at an accelerated rate in the next few months.