More than 11 billion tons of ice was lost to the oceans by surface melt on Wednesday alone, creating a net mass ice loss of some 217 billion tons from Greenland in July.
The scope of Wednesday’s ice melt is a number difficult to grasp. To understand just how much ice is being lost, a mere 1 billion tons—or 1 gigaton—of ice loss is equivalent to about 400,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools, the Danish Meteorological Institute said.
— The Associated Press
The Associated Press reports that a summer heatwave that recently scorched Europe has moved north to Greenland, where the elevated temperatures have produced record glacial melt.
While 82-percent of Greenland is covered in ice, nearly 60-percent of the island's total ice sheet is showing signs of melting, a record high, the Danish Meteorological Institute tells The Associated Press.
According to the institute's Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist, global sea levels are due to rise .01-inch for every 110 billion tons of ice melt that occurs on the continent.
Is Greenland melting before our eyes? It looks like yes.
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