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A meadow of flowers in the Greenlandic summer (archive image)
Photo: Bob Strong / REUTERS
In view of the unusually high temperatures, the Greenland ice sheet is currently melting "massively", according to Danish scientists.
Since Wednesday, around eight billion tons of ice have been melting every day, according to the “Polar Portal” website on Saturday, on which several Danish research institutions report on their work.
That is twice the usual value in summer.
In the north of Greenland, according to the Danish weather authority DMI, temperatures currently exceed 20 degrees Celsius, more than twice as much as the average in summer.
At the small Nerlerit Inaat airport in northeast Greenland, 23.4 degrees Celsius were measured on Thursday, the highest temperature since weather records began.
On that day, so much ice melted that the entire US state of Florida was five centimeters under water, the scientists said.
In the summer of 2019, a record melt was registered in Greenland.
This value has not yet been set this year, but a much larger area is now affected, it said on the page.
The second largest ice sheet after Antarctica, covering nearly 1.8 million square kilometers and covering Greenland, worries scientists as the Arctic is warming three times faster than anywhere else in the world.
The melting of the ice sheet began in 1990 and has been accelerating since 2000. According to the researchers, the mass loss in recent years is about four times as great as it was before 2000.
According to a European study published in January, sea levels will rise ten to 18 centimeters by 2100 - or 60 percent faster than previously thought - if the Greenland ice sheet melts as quickly as it does now.
If the Greenland ice were to melt completely, the sea level would rise by six to seven meters.
Melting period lasts until September
Due to a relatively cool start to summer with snow and precipitation, the decline in the Greenland ice in 2021 is still within the historical average, according to the »Polar Portal«.
The melting period lasts from June to early September.
sol / afp
