Global climate change continues to cause damage to the environment • A huge glacier is melting in the Arctic in the northeast of the country • Environmental organizations have expressed concern
About 79 percent of Greenland's area is covered in ice
Photo:
Reuters - Archive
The disengagement of a glacier twice the size of Manhattan caused large parts of the largest ice shelf left in the Arctic region in northeastern Greenland to melt, CNN reported yesterday (Monday).
The ice surface on the island of Greenland is the second largest in the world after Antarctica.
Melting glaciers causes an increase of more than a millimeter in sea level each year.
"We have to be very concerned about what appears to be an advanced stage in the disintegration of the largest ice shelf left in the Arctic," said Jason Box from the Geological Survey of Greenland and Denmark (GEUS).
"The size of the ice that is now melting is a little less than twice the size of Manhattan."
GEUS researchers tracked ice melting in the area using optical satellite images.
Greenland, the largest island in the world, is located between the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.
About 79 percent of its surface is covered with ice.
Greenland has been losing huge areas of ice in recent decades.
As a result, sea levels in the area are expected to rise by more than three meters by the end of the current century.
Scientists have linked the disintegration of ice sheets to climate change.
"The last few years have been incredibly hot in northeastern Greenland," said Jenny Torton, a researcher at Friedrich Alexander University in Germany.
According to her, peak temperatures have been measured in the area in the last two years.
