NASA scientist Josh Willis flew this week over Greenland and gazed upon a vast polar world made of melted ice, dark pools of water, and other facets.
A powerful heat wave caused large areas of Greenland's ice sheet to melt in mid-August. It is about three times larger than Texas. It is a clear sign of changing times and climes. Arctic scientists have witnessed record-breaking melt events occur in Greenland in recent decades. This results in water rushing into the ocean and contributing to sea level rise. The island's total melted area, 8.2 million sq. miles, is more than the average 1981-2010 melting area by about 1 million sq. miles.
"It is important to remember that all of the major melt years have occurred in the past two decades," Willis, who studies ice sheets at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told Mashable during Greenland flights. The reason is that the Greenland melt is becoming more extreme every decade because of human interference with the climate.
Scientists from the Arctic have discovered that Greenland has been melting faster in the past few decades than it had in at least 350 year. The ice sheet is decreasing.
Major melting events are occurring at the island's often frigid summit as the climate heats up and the climate warms. Greenland was hit by a few heat waves this summer, according to Ted Scambos, an expert on ice sheets at the University of Boulder Colorado, who is not involved in the NASA mission. At 10,551 feet, it even rained on Greenland. Scientists hadn't seen rain there before.
Scambos explained that centuries would pass between major melt events at summits before 1995. He cited evidence from cores of Greenland ice to explain this. He said, "Now it's only a matter of months."
These photos were taken from an Indian Jones-sized DC-3 propellor plane as it flew over southwestern Greenland. The areas in dark blue are melting pools. The "snow swamps", where snow is saturated with water and is draining downhill into large rivers that lead to the ocean, are the lighter blue areas. Over the past three decades, the elevations at which melt events take place on Greenland's Ice Sheet have been gradually creeping uphill, according to Scambos.
The melting Greenland Ice Sheet Credit: josh Willis / Nasa
Greenland is home to large areas of melting ice. Credit: Josh Willis / Nasa
NASA's Willis was not flying around the continent to observe the melting. NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland mission has them currently placing sensors in the oceans around the island's coast to monitor how the warming ocean is destroying some of the most important glaciers on Earth. (The melting along the coastlines is significant and will increase as the seas warm.
Willis and his crew were flying over Greenland to pick up additional equipment when they were shocked by Greenland’s current melt. Jim Haffey, their captain, stated that he had never seen such a large amount of melting before.
Willis said, "He's been flying above the ice sheet for 25+ years and has seen almost everything." "As scientist, I want to see the data before assuming someone's opinion on what they have seen." The records were the same as the pilot's.
SEE ALSO: How the Antarctic glacier purges ice into water
Another Arctic scientist, also spotted large plains of melting water over Greenland recently, as the video by a scientist from Denmark's Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet Program shows.
Blue color for Greenland's 2021 melt event. The orange line is 2012, which was the record year for melting. Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (an institution that studies polar and ice regions around the Earth), a Greenland melt event occurred in July and August. Multiple events of extreme melting occurred in one summer. This happened only twice: In 2021 (the current record meltyear) and 2012.
Climate change is all about trends. Greenland's continuing pattern of large-scale melting is a sign that extremes are becoming more extreme with increasing global warming. Greenland's rapid ice loss is similar in severity to severe deluges and intense droughts. There has also been an increase in severe, inferno-like wildfires.
SEE ALSO: How the Antarctic glacier purges ice into water
Global consequences are a result of the melting of Greenland's largest ice sheets and Antarctica's Antarctica. The Greenland-Antarctica ice loss has increased sixfold in the last 30 years. Earth scientists are deeply concerned by these remote, ice-clad lands: Ocean researchers and ice sheet researchers anticipate sea levels rising another 1.5 to 2.5 feet this century.
For future generations, sea level rise will be even greater. However, carbon emissions are less important than sea level rise. These vast ice masses have the potential to cause sea level rise of many feet in the next century and beyond.
