‘Canary in coal’: Greenland ice is shrinking further back, study finds

(Reuters) – Greenland’s ice sheet may have shrunk past the point of return, with ice likely to melt, no matter how fast global warming emits from global warming, new research suggests.

Scientists studied data on 234 glaciers over Arctic soil in 34 years through 2018 and found that annual snowfall was no longer enough to replenish glaciers from the snow and ice that was lost after summer.

That melting is causing all the world’s oceans on average about a millimeter per year. If all of Greenland’s ice were to fall, the released water would push sea levels up by an average of 6 meters – enough to overwinter many coastal cities around the world. However, this process would take decades.

“Greenland will become the canary in coal, and the canary is already pretty dead at this point,” said glacier Ian Howat at Ohio State University. He and his colleagues published the study Thursday in the journal Nature Communications Earth & Environment.

The Arctic has been warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world over the last 30 years, an observation called Arctic amplification. The polar ice cap hit its lowest level for July in 40 years.

The Arctic thief has brought more water to the region, opening up routes for shipping traffic, as well as increased interest in extracting fossil fuels and other natural resources.

Greenland is strategically important to the US military and its early ballistic missile warning system, as the shortest route from Europe to North America is via the Arctic island.

Last year, President Donald Trump offered to buy Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory. But Denmark, an American ally, withdrew the offer. Then last month the US reopened a consulate in the capital of the territory Nuuk, and Denmark said after last week that it would appoint an intermediary between Nuuk and Copenhagen about 3,500 kilometers away.

However, scientists have long been concerned about the fate of Greenland, seeing how much water is trapped in the ice.

The new study suggests that the ice sheet of the ground will now only gain mass once in 100 years – a grim indicator of how difficult it is to regenerate glaciers when ice blooms.

When studying satellite images of the glaciers, the researchers noted that the glaciers had a 50% chance of regaining mass before 2000, with the chance decreasing since then.

“We are now turning even more ice than what was obtained by snow accumulation in ‘good’ years,” said lead author Michalea King, a glaciologist at State University.

The sober findings should encourage governments to prepare them for rising sea levels, King said.

“Things that happen in the polar regions do not stay in the polar region,” she said.

Yet the world could still bring emissions to slow climate change, scientists said. Even if Greenland cannot recover the icy bulk that covers its 2 million square kilometers, the rise in world temperature may slow down the rate of ice loss.

“When we think about climate action, we are not talking about building up the Greenland ice sheet,” said Twila Moon, a glaciologist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center who was not involved in the study. “We talk about how fast sea level rise is coming to our communities, our infrastructure, our homes, our military bases.”