440 Billion Tons of Ice Are Expected to Melt This Summer in Greenland — What That Means for Earth

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty

Scientists are warning that a major heatwave inGreenlandcould lead to a whole lot of melted glacier ice this summer – 440 billion tons, to be exact.

TheNational Snow & Ice Data Centernotes that that figure is about 40 billion tons more than the 1981 to 2010 average for the same time period.

By the end of the summer, 440 billion tons are expected to have vanished, reportedly enough to flood Pennsylvania or the entire country of Greece about one foot deep.

“There’s every reason to believe that years that look like this will become more common,” University of Georgia ice scientist Tom Mote told the outlet.

Take, for example, Helheim. The glacier, one of Greenland’s fastest-retreating, has shrunk about six miles since 2005.

“[It’s] the end of the planet,” New York University air and ocean scientist David Holland told the AP. “It takes a really long time to grow an ice sheet, thousands and thousands of years, but they can be broken up or destroyed quite rapidly.”

Holland believes that Greenland’s melting ice problem comes in part from warm, salty water coming in from the Gulf Stream in North America.

source: people.com