It Rained on the Summit of Greenland’s Ice Sheet for the First Time Ever Recorded

Last week, the Greenland ice sheet underwent a serious melting occasion—its second in two weeks. This time round, the melting was quickened by an entirely surprising and unwelcome customer: rain.

Seven billion tons of rain fell on the nation final week, and for the primary time in recorded historical past, it rained on the Greenland Summit Camp, a analysis station close to the usually frigid high of the ice sheet. Saturday was additionally solely the third time this decade that temperatures ever rose above freezing at Greenland’s summit, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

The large melting occasion occurred throughout two days final weekend. These large-scale melts can do severe injury to the ice sheet even when they solely final just a few days. The darker water can take in the solar’s vitality and trigger the encompassing ice to soften sooner, destabilizing the snow and firn beneath the floor. The blitz of water can screw up ice sheet dynamics in the long term as properly.

“During melt events, these processes can occur over parts of the ice sheet that do not typically experience melt, making the impact more widespread,” Lauren Andrews, a glaciologist with NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, mentioned in a press release to NASA’s Earth Observatory. “Positive feedbacks like these are starting to take their toll.”

The weekend of rain provides yet one more wrinkle to the combo. In addition to melting ice, it additionally creates points for when it inevitably refreezes. Ice made by the compression of snow and firn is mostly fairly white and reflective. Ice by the use of rain is comparatively easy and darkish, although, which suggests it’s going to take in extra of the solar’s rays and be extra susceptible to melting.

On Saturday, the extent of ice affected by melting peaked at 337,000 sq. miles (872,000 sq. kilometers), roughly half of the large ice sheet. About two-thirds of the ice sheet melted in late July, and this marks solely the second 12 months on report the ice sheet has seen multiple soften occasion of greater than 309,000 sq. miles (800,000 sq. kilometers). What’s extra, no soften occasion of that extent has ever been seen as late within the 12 months because the one which simply hit the ice sheet.

This summer season is a warning signal of the horrors the local weather disaster has in retailer. The Arctic is warming sooner than wherever else on Earth. Studies show that rain is changing into way more frequent, and that development will proceed because the local weather disaster turns into extra extreme. A 2020 report discovered that some Arctic areas will start seeing rain as a substitute of snow in any month of the 12 months, even in the course of the historically frigid winter.

The Greenland ice sheet meltdown is just one affect. These shifts have additionally taken a huge toll on the area’s Indigenous populations and ecosystems, they usually’re harmful for these of us dwelling removed from the Arctic, too. Last week’s main Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report confirmed that soften from Greenland and Antarctica’s ice sheets is inflicting seas to rise sooner than at any level within the final 3,000 years.

A 2019 examine discovered that if the world retains emitting greenhouse gases at an growing rate, ice soften from Greenland alone might trigger sea ranges to rise between as much as a foot (.3 meters) by the top of the century, overwhelming coastal communities around the globe. It would additionally finally lead all the ice sheet to vanish, albeit by the 12 months 3000. That would elevate sea ranges 23 ft (7 meters). The solely strategy to chase away that destiny is to quickly, urgently kick fossil fuels to the curb and draw down greenhouse fuel emissions. If we don’t, rain on the Greenland Summit Camp might grow to be frequent—and might be the least of our issues.