With July of 2019 being called the hottest month in recorded history by the World Meteorological Organization, up to 60 per cent of Greenland’s ice cover was melting with temperatures up to 15 degrees above normal.
On Thursday, July 31, climate scientists offered estimates of ice ablation in Greenland of up to 12.5 gigatons — all from a single day.
The total loss in July alone would have contributed towards 0.5mm of sea-level rise worldwide, according to researcher Martin Stendel.
The equivalent amount of water released would be enough to submerge all of Denmark with half a meter of water, Stendel tweeted.
Later, science journalist Laurie Garret shared a video of what the resultant water flow from melting ice looked like in the Western Greenland region.
July 31 saw the largest melting event in Greenland since 2012, when ISRO’s OceanSat satellite detected that up to 97 per cent of Greenland’s ice mass was experiencing melting.
Greenland has been losing ice faster over the years. A 2019 study published in the journal Science Advances used 2003 data to estimate that Greenland would contribute between 5-33cm of global seawater rise by 2100. By the end of the millennium, Greenland is expected to run out of ice altogether, according to the study.
Earlier studies had estimated that, depending of which part of Greenland saw ice-melting, sea-levels would rise in certain cities accordingly. The city of London is most vulnerable to melting incidents taking place along Greenland’s Northwestern coast, while New York would be worst hit by melting taking place along Greenland’s Northern and Eastern portions.
Greenland's high temperatures come in the wake of a heat wave that set record temperatures across Europe.