217 Billion Tons Of Greenland Ice Melted In July

After the hot, record breaking July that has just passed, it seems that whilst we were enjoying the weather, a colossal 217 billion tons of ice submitted to the harsh conditions and turned to slush.

Danish polar research institutions have reported more than 10 billion tonnes (11 billion tons) of ice were lost to the ocean by surface melt on Wednesday, July 31, alone, according to the Associated Press. That’s a weight equivalent to around 30 Empire State Buildings.

“Following a relatively dry winter and warm spring for Greenland, a major surface melt episode occurred between June 11 and 20,” the National Snow and Ice Data Centre said on their website.

“Melting in Greenland through the end of spring has been significantly higher than the 1981 to 2010 average, with several areas exceeding 10 days of additional melt above the average, and a few regions with more than 20 days.”

Shockingly, it has been revealed that the huge melt has resulted in a global sea level rise of around half a millimeter (0.02 inches). This may sound like a tiny amount, but over 100 years, if this rise in sea level continues, the sea level will have risen by 60cm. This considering things don’t get any worse than they already are, the sea level in 100 years is very likely to be a few meters higher according to some sources.

The thing is, things are only set to get worse in Greenland, too. The problem of melting polar ice creates a nasty positive feedback loop that messes with how well the  planet can cool down. Since ice is reflective, it does a good job at bouncing solar radiation back into space. However, with less ice, more of this heat energy is soaked up by the Earth and becomes trapped in the atmosphere.

While seasonal melting of the ice sheet is nothing out of the ordinary these levels are very high and close to rivalling record levels seen in 2012 when the ice sheet lost about 250 billion tons of ice.