The heat wave that affects Greenland will have consequences throughout the planet

We will not see people cooling off on the beach, or getting wet in the fountain of the town square, nor will it make us sweat and not complain endlessly about the unbearable suffocation. When a heat wave affects a distant country like Greenland it seems that it does not go with us but, the reality is that it is our problem.

The world’s second largest ice sheet continues to melt by leaps and bounds and this translates to rising sea levels and torrential rains in Europe.

The Sahara heat wave that we experienced at the beginning of July in Spain and all of southern Europe has moved north and has settled in Greenland, as already warned by the World Meteorological Organization. This rise in thermometers is accelerating the thaw. 56% of the region is affected by melting (an area of ice subjected to temperatures above 0º C), including the highest areas of Greenland.

Record-breaking thaw

Greenland’s layer of yarn melts in summer is not uncommon but this year it began to melt earlier, in May, and this week’s heat wave will accelerate melting. In fact, since spring temperatures have remained constant and above average.

“The thaw could break the 2012 record, as temperate temperatures are expected to remain subdued and the thaw season lasts until the end of August. Then we will know what the final figures for the season are,” Danish weather service climatologist Ruth Mottram told Euronews.

For now, scientists at the Norwegian center expect 190 gigatons of melted ice to be surpassed by the end of the month, which is not yet at the record levels of 2012.

According to the first indications on Wednesday, the melting surface was close to 60%, the highest recorded in 2019, although some scientists raise it to 87%.

Journalist Laurie Garrett posted this video on her Twitter account from a bridge in Kangerlussiauq that was recently rebuilt after the 2012 thaw that reached record levels.

This is not the first news we tell from La Vanguardia about the alarming situation that Greenland is experiencing. In June, an image published on Twitter by scientist Steffen Olsen showed the effects of the climate crisis in the area.

Global effects

What is happening in Greenland will be noticed all over the world.

Jason Box, a professor and climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, says this year’s melt is flooding the North Atlantic with fresh water, which could affect the climate in Europe. The result could be much stronger storms.

During a year like 2012 or 2019, the water produced by the Greenland ice sheet adds more than a millimeter to global sea levels, according to Box. But countries in the tropics could see an increase of two millimeters or more, he said.

The effects of the climate crisis

During the month of July alone, the Greenland ice sheet lost 160 billion tons of ice, according to Clare Nullis, a spokeswoman for the UN World Meteorological Organization.

“Normally when a temperature record is broken, it’s by a fraction of a degree. What we saw yesterday was that records were broken by two, three or four degrees; it was absolutely incredible,” Nullis explained.

According to Nullis, intense heat waves such as the one that raises temperatures in Greenland “bear the signature of the man-made climate crisis.”

Source: The Vanguard