For the first time in history, there was heavy rain on the top of the ice sheet on the Danish island of Greenland. What's the sign?
Temperatures at Greenland's peak were recorded to have risen above freezing for the third time in less than a decade. This warm air then triggers extreme rain, up to 7 billion tons of water hit the ice sheet.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, this event was the heaviest rain on the Greenland ice sheet since records began in 1950. The amount of ice mass lost was seven times more than the average day for this year.
Predictably, this event indicates the real impact of climate change is increasingly being felt in Greenland. Ted Scambors, a scientist from the University of Colorado, called it evidence that Greenland is warming rapidly.
At the summit of Greenland, since 1989 operates the National Science Foundation's Summit Station where scientists research Arctic weather and changes in the ice sheet. Researchers there say the weather in Greenland is getting weirder.
"This rain means we need to consider changes in weather that we've never experienced before in history. Events like melting ice, strong winds and now rain, in the last 10 years have been above normal, and seem to be coming back again and again," said Jennifer Mercer. , one of the scientists there.
On the other hand, climate change is causing the Earth to lose more and more ice sheets due to melting. A recent study published in the journal Cyrosphere reveals Earth has lost 28 trillion ice sheets since the mid-1990s, mostly from the Arctic including Greenland.