May 13, 2020
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…
