Researchers report a sad record: Greenland lost a particularly large amount of ice in the summer of 2019. The total mass loss was 532 billion tons – significantly more than in the previous record year 2012.
According to the Bremerhaven Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI), the Greenland ice sheet lost a particularly large amount of mass in the past year.
At 532 billion tons, the total mass losses were higher than in the previous record year 2012 – at that time it was 464 billion tons. That corresponds to a worldwide sea level rise of 1.5 millimeters. This is the result of a study by the AWI and the Potsdam Geoforschungszentrum (GFZ). The scientists evaluated satellite and model data for this. The study was published in the journal “Communications Earth & Environment”.
The average annual loss since 2003 has been 235 billion tons. The ice losses in 2019 exceeded the increase due to snowfall by more than 80 percent, the study continues.
Mass losses increased sharply again
“After a two-year respite, the mass losses have risen sharply again in 2019 and have exceeded all annual losses since 1948, probably even for over 100 years,” said Ingo Sasgen from the Alfred Wegener Institute and author of the study: “More and more often we have stable high pressure areas over the ice sheet, which favor the influx of warmer air from the middle latitudes and thus the melting. “
Inland ice – also known as the ice sheet – is an area-like glaciation that almost completely covers the existing relief. The inland ice in Antarctica and that in Greenland are the largest ice sheets on earth. The mass balance of a year results from the difference between ice increase due to snowfall and ice loss due to melting and ice ejection at the edge into the ocean.
US researchers: Ice loss can no longer be stopped
It was only in mid-August that researchers from Ohio State University reported that the loss of ice from Greenland was accelerating and could no longer be stopped, even if global warming ended immediately.
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