Greenland is melting, and Danish scientists have just given a vivid preview and image for how much. They say that melting ice from Greenland is now the main factor in the rise of the world’s oceans.
Based on measurements that began to be taken in 2002, the Greenland ice sheet has lost 4700 billion tonnes of ice, enough to raise the world’s sea levels by 1.2 cm. Or for a more dramatic image, enough to cover the United States in a half-metre of water.
The report was prepared by Polar Portal, a consortium of Danish Arctic research institutes, using data from a joint U.S.-German measurements program. The indications are that the thinning of the ice is most severe on the west coast of Greenland, and that because sea temperature as well as air temperature have been rising, the Arctic is the area where climate change is happening fastest.
