China News Service, July 22. According to a report by CNN on the 20th, due to the unusually warm weather, icebergs in northern Greenland are melting rapidly.
Data map: At sunrise, a large iceberg near Greenland is drifting away.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that between July 15 and 17, 6 billion tons of melted water poured into the ocean every day in Greenland, enough to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools in three days.
According to reports, the temperature in northern Greenland recently reached about 15.6 degrees Celsius, which is about 5.6 degrees Celsius higher than in previous years.
Looking at 30- to 40-year climate averages, "the amount of snowmelt in the northern part of the island over the past week has been unusual," said a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado.
A research scientist at the University of Texas, who is currently stationed in Greenland, said he can even walk around wearing a T-shirt these days, a situation that is extremely abnormal in the frigid Arctic Ocean and worries him.
In 2019, Greenland experienced an unprecedented snowmelt event that sent 532 billion tonnes of water into the sea, causing a permanent 1.5mm rise in global sea levels.
Research published in February 2022 shows the bottom of the Greenland ice sheet is melting at an "unprecedented" rate.
If all of Greenland's snow-capped mountains melted, it would raise global sea levels by 7.5 meters.
Since the 1980s, Greenland has warmed by about 0.8 degrees Celsius per decade, four times faster than global warming.