The Greenland ice sheet is the hottest on record and will cause global sea levels to rise 20 inches by 2100 if it warms at the same rate, scientists warn.
From 2001 to 2011, high-altitude temperatures were 1.5°C warmer than in the 20th century, marking the warmest decade in the last thousand years.
This is based on a reconstruction of temperatures in central north Greenland from 1100 to 2011, performed by experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute.
Over the past 30 years, Greenland’s contribution to global sea level has increased significantly as melting ice has increased, with a recent major report concluding that it is losing ice seven times faster than in the 1990s.
Concern: The Greenland ice sheet is the hottest on record and will cause global sea levels to rise 20 inches by 2100 if it warms at the same rate, scientists warn
From 2001 to 2011, high-altitude temperatures were 1.5°C warmer than in the 20th century, marking the warmest decade in the last thousand years
HOW DOES GLOBAL WARMING AFFECT GLACIAL RETREAT?
Global warming is causing temperatures to rise around the world.
This is particularly pronounced at latitudes closer to the poles.
Rising temperatures, permafrost, glaciers and ice sheets are all struggling to remain intact in the face of warmer climates.
As temperatures have risen more than a degree above pre-industrial levels, the ice continues to melt.
For example, melting ice on the Greenland ice sheet creates “meltwater lakes”, which then further contribute to melting.
This positive feedback loop is also found on glaciers on mountains.
Many of these have been frozen since the last Ice Age and researchers are seeing a significant retreat.
Some animal and plant species rely heavily on the cold that glaciers provide and migrate to higher elevations to find suitable habitat.
This puts a heavy strain on ecosystems as more and more animals and species live in an ever-shrinking region.
In addition to the environmental impact, the lack of ice on the mountains greatly increases the risk of landslides and volcanic eruptions.
The phenomenon is found in several mountain ranges around the world.
It has also been seen in regions of Antarctica.
There are even fears that the ice sheet may have passed a point of no return.
It has been suggested that all of Greenland will melt due to the global warming that the world has already committed to due to carbon emissions.
The Greenland ice sheet plays an important role in the global climate due to its size, its radiative effect and its storage of approximately three million cubic kilometers of fresh water.
Weather stations along the ice sheet’s coast have recorded rising temperatures for many years, but scientists have been largely in the dark about how global warming is affecting elevated areas up to 3,000 meters (9,800 feet).
That’s due to a lack of long-term observations, which prompted the researchers involved in the new study to reconstruct past temperatures.
The result clearly shows that climate change has reached the remote parts of north-central Greenland.
“The time series we have obtained from ice cores now continuously spans more than 1,000 years, from year 1000 to 2011,” said glaciologist Dr. Maria Hörhold, lead author of the research.
“These data show that the warming in the years 2001-2011 differs significantly from the natural fluctuations of the last 1,000 years.
“Although grimly anticipated given global warming, we were surprised at just how obvious this difference really was.”
dr Hörhold and her colleagues reached their conclusions by analyzing the isotopic composition in shallow ice cores.
Earlier samples from the 1990s showed no significant warming in central-north Greenland despite rising global average temperatures, which experts say is partly due to natural climate variability in the region.
But researchers have now expanded on those earlier datasets by re-drilling the ice sheet during a series of expeditions up to 2012.
The temperatures were then reconstructed by measuring stable oxygen isotope concentrations in the ice, which vary with temperatures at the time of ice formation.
The calculations are based on a reconstruction of temperatures in central north Greenland from 1100 to 2011, which was carried out by experts from the Alfred Wegener Institute
The researchers extended previous data sets on ice melt and temperatures at high altitudes by re-drilling the ice sheet during a series of expeditions up to 2012 (pictured).
Estimates: Temperatures were then reconstructed by measuring stable oxygen isotope concentrations in the ice, which vary with temperatures at the time of ice formation
In addition to estimating temperature changes, the team reconstructed how much the plate has melted and found that it has increased significantly since the 2000s, contributing to global sea level rise.
If business-as-usual continues, without action to curb global warming, sea levels will rise by 50 cm by 2100, the researchers said.
They found that the reconstructed temperature for 2001–2011 was, on average, 3°F (1.7°C) warmer than the 1961–1990 period and 2.7°F (1.5°C) warmer than the entire 20th century th century.
“We were amazed to see how closely inland temperatures are linked to the Greenland-wide meltwater runoff – which eventually occurs in areas of low elevation at the edge of the ice sheet near the coast,” added Dr. Add Hörhold.
To examine the connection between ice melt at the edges of the ice sheet and temperatures at high altitudes, the scientists used data from a regional climate model from the years 1871 and 2011 and combined them with satellite observations from 2002 to 2021.
This enabled them to convert the temperature fluctuations found in the ice cores into melting rates and provide estimates for the last 1,000 years.
They hope their research will provide a better understanding of how the ice sheet has melted in the past, as well as better predictions of future sea level rise.
The study was published in the journal Nature.
SEA LEVEL COULD RISE UP TO 4 FEET BY THE YEAR 2300
Global sea levels could rise by as much as 1.2 meters (4 feet) by 2300, even if we meet the 2015 Paris climate targets, scientists warn.
The long-term change is being driven by ice melt from Greenland to Antarctica that will redraw global shorelines.
Sea level rise is threatening cities from Shanghai to London, low-lying parts of Florida or Bangladesh, and entire nations like the Maldives.
It’s vital that we curb emissions as soon as possible to avoid an even bigger spike, a German-led team of researchers said in a new report.
The report predicts that sea levels will rise by 0.7 to 1.2 meters by 2300, even if nearly 200 nations fully meet the 2015 Paris Agreement targets.
Targets set in the agreements include reducing greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by the second half of the century.
Sea levels will continue to rise because heat-trapping industrial gases already emitted will remain in the atmosphere and more ice will melt, it said.
In addition, water expands naturally when heated above four degrees Celsius (39.2 °F).
Every five-year delay in reaching the peak in global emissions beyond 2020 would mean an additional 20 centimeters (8 inches) of sea level rise by 2300.
“Sea level is often communicated as a really slow process that you can’t do much about… but the next 30 years are really important,” said lead author Dr. Matthias Mengel from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Potsdam. Germany.
None of the nearly 200 governments signing the Paris Accords are on track to fulfill their commitments.