Greenland is home to world’s second-largest ice sheet. And when it melts significantly — as it is expected to do this year — there are knock-on effects for sea levels and weather across the globe.
Greenland’s ice sheet usually melts during the summer. This year, it started melting earlier, in May, and this week’s heatwave is expected to accelerate the melt.
Now 2019 could come close to the record-setting year of 2012, said Jason Box, professor and ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland. During that “melty year,” he said, Greenland’s ice sheet lost 450 million metric tons — the equivalent of more than 14,000 tons of ice lost per second.
What happens in Greenland will be felt across the world.
Box said that this year’s melt is flooding the North Atlantic with freshwater, which could affect the weather in northwestern Europe. The result could be stronger storms, he added, citing flooding in the UK in 2015 and 2016.
“Whatever happens in Greenland radiates its impact down,” he said.
Source: Greenland is melting in a heatwave. That’s everyone’s problem
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