Scientists warn that ice cover Greenland may have reached the point from which there is already a one-way road to total disappearance.
The snowfall, which previously replenished the ice, is no longer able to keep up with the melting, scientists from Ohio State University.
This means that the Greenland ice sheet – the world’s second largest glacier – will continue to shrink even if the rise in global temperatures stops.
It turned out that the amount of ice that flows into the ocean significantly exceeds the amount of snow that collects on the surface of the glacier
– says Michalea King, the lead author scientific article published in the journal Nature.
If the Greenland ice sheet had completely melted, it would have caused a sea level rise of 7 meters by 3000. If it did, the ocean would significantly retract coastlines around the world.
We are already melting ice on Greenland has the greatest impact on sea level rise. Over the next 80 years, if the current rate of melting continues, Greenland will contribute another 6.9 cm to sea level rise.
The retreat of the glaciers turned the entire glacier into a state of constant mass loss. Even if the climate stops warming or even cools a little, the ice sheet will continue to lose mass
– says Ian Howat, a glaciologist and co-author of the study
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The bad news doesn’t stop there, however
The amount of ice Greenland loses each year has been steadily increasing over the past twenty years. Prior to 2000, researchers believed that the amount of ice could with equal probability increase and decrease from year to year. However, the last 20 years have changed these estimates. Now scientists believe that the increase in the amount of ice will be recorded once every hundred years.
An unprecedented amount of water and ice was transported from Greenland to the ocean in summer 2019. At its peak, the ice sheet lost 55 billion tonnes of water in just five days. It is enough to cover the whole of Poland with a 6 cm layer of water.
The melted ice accelerates the melting process, as the water covering the glacier surface absorbs more solar radiation and accelerates the heating of the immediate surroundings.
Minimizing or stopping further global warming may slow down the acceleration of the glacier’s melting rate.
We feel like we’ve already passed the point of no return, but that doesn’t mean it can’t get any worse. We passed one point of no return, turning a growing ice sheet into a shrinking ice sheet. In fact, however, there are more such points. It almost looks like stairs. We’ve fallen off the first one so far, but there are still many steps ahead
Howat summed up in an interview with a CNN journalist.
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