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Tag: greenland ice sheet

Is Greenland Okay?

Last year saw record-breaking ice melt events in Greenland, with the largest island on Earth yielding a net ice loss of over 300gt, according to the National Snow & Ice Data Center.

To put this into perspective, a gigatonne is 1,000,000,000 metric tons, and a metric ton is equal to 1.10231 US tons. 300gt is roughly 330.7 billion US tons. Here, try out the conversion for yourself. We’ll wait.

However, last year was only the seventh-worst year for ice melt in Greenland. Data from the NSIDC shows 2012 had the highest ice melt, but melt had significantly decreased by 2013 – that isn’t to say conditions weren’t a cause for concern, but they had “chilled out” in comparison to 2012.

So, is there a chance 2020 might spare a little mercy towards Greenland? Well…

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What’s Beneath Greenland May Not Be so Green

Greenland is a vast island adorned in an ice sheet that’s three times the size of Texas, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).

Although Greenland’s ice sheet has withstood the test of time over the last 2.7 million years, its increase in surface melt over the last few years is rapidly chipping away at the island’s 656,000 square mile blanket of ice.

What lies beneath the ice, and what lies in our future if these trends continue, is a future that is far from green (for us, at least).

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