The melting of the Greenland ice cap “has passed the point of no return”

Aug 18, 2020 by Johnna crider

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Who remembers learning in elementary school about Greenland and Iceland and that nifty switcheroo the Vikings used to keep other Vikings from realizing that Greenland wasn’t that green? Well, it turns out that this story isn’t true, but the real story of Greenland might be just as interesting:

Greenland was named by Eiríkur rauði or Erik the Red* approximately 120 years after Iceland received its name. Erik was sentenced to exile for 3 years by Icelanders and spent those years exploring Greenland. Upon his return to Iceland, he told people great stories about a wonderful land in the west. Erik wanted to establish a settlement in Greenland and he knew he would need the support of as many people as possible to make this settlement a success. So he deliberately gave the land an attractive name in order to attract potential settlers. “People would be attracted to go if he had a favorable name.” His sales job worked, many people joined him to form two colonies in Greenland and he became the “lord” of Greenland… ”

Well, as of 2020, the Greenland ice cap is melting rapidly and it looks like that won’t change. This is something we should all cry for. This gradual farewell says hello to a warmer planet.

CNN reported that the Greenland ice cap has melted at “a point of no return”. This information comes from a new study by researchers at Ohio State University. The study, titled “Dynamic Ice Loss of the Greenland Ice Sheet Caused by Sustained Glacier Retreat,” noted that the major mass loss of the ice sheet has occurred at accelerated rates in the 21st century. It will also be the biggest contributor to sea level rise.

“The ice sheet is now in this new dynamic state, where even if we returned to a climate that looked more like what we had 20 or 30 years ago, we would still lose mass quite quickly,” said Ian Howat. , a co-author of the study and professor at Ohio State University.

This study combined more than 30 years of “remotely sensed observation products of changes in glacier speed, elevation and frontal position across the ice sheet”. The ice sheet typically releases more than 280 billion metric tonnes of melting ice into the ocean each year. Lead author of the study, Michalea King, said this made it the biggest contributor to global sea level rise. The loss was so massive that it caused a measurable change in the gravitational field. in Greenland, she explained.

The melting ice in Greenland is also raising sea levels by more than a millimeter per year, and with this unstoppable melting news, it will only get worse. Sea level, which is expected to rise more than a meter by the end of this century, will wipe out beaches and coastal properties. States like mine, Louisiana, as well as Florida have been dealing with the consequences of rising sea levels for years, but it’s going to get more difficult.

CNN noted that 40% of the US population resides in coastal areas and is vulnerable to sea level rise. In Mississippi, the costs of coastal flooding are high – persistent flooding of water forces those who live along the coast to move to higher land. In fact, there was almost $ 16 billion in coastal property value losses between 2005 and 2017 due to flooding in coastal areas.

It’s not just the United States, but every continent on the planet is facing this crisis. In Fiji (it’s not just a water mark), coastal communities have already had to move inland, as their islands have already been swallowed by the sea. One resident, Barney Dunn, was forced to see his ancestral homeland disappear under the rising sea. “You see your ancestors swimming in the sea. If you live there, you will know how you feel,” he told correspondent Barbara Dreaver from NEWS Pacific, who visited Togoru.

“There are a lot of places, like Florida in particular, where a meter alone would cover a lot of existing land,” King said. CNN. “And that’s exacerbated when you have storms and hurricanes and things like that, which then causes an additional surge on top of a higher baseline.”

The study, which used 40 years of satellite data to measure changes in the Greenland ice sheet, found that it is receding in rapid gusts. This leads to sudden and unpredictable sea level rises, making it difficult to prepare for the effects. The authors also found that after 2000, the ice sheet began to shrink so quickly that replenishing snowfall could not keep up. The point of no return has passed for the Greenland ice cap.

However, this is only a prelude to what is to come. If humans refuse to change their ways on this planet, the rate of melting will be much worse. Ian Howat, one of the study’s authors, said entire coasts of ice are suddenly receding thanks to climate change. He noted that the 200 glaciers that make up the Greenland ice sheet were observed retreating at the same time.

“We have passed the point of no return, but there is obviously more to come,” he said, “Rather than being a single tipping point where we went from a happy ice cap to a rapidly collapsing ice cap it’s more of a staircase where we fell from the first step, but there are a lot more steps to descend into the pit.

To end on a lighter note, here is the footnote to the article from which the text cited at the top comes:

* BTW Erik’s son, Leifur Eiríksson was also an explorer like this father. Leifur sailed from Greenland and found and named three lands:

Leifur is therefore often credited with discovering the Americas around 500 years before Christopher Columbus …

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Keywords: Climate change, Greenland, ice cap