The climate crisis continues as Greenland melts away; sea levels rise drastically

The threat of worldwide flooding is real as Greenland alone has witnessed immense ice melting and rising sea levels in the last 40 years. This is according to a new study led by the University of Leeds and published in Nature Communications.

Over the past decade alone, 3.5 trillion tonnes of ice has melted from the surface of the island and flowed downhill into the ocean. That's enough melted ice to cover the entire UK in nearly 50 feet of water.

Researchers used satellite data to detect a phenomenon, known as ice sheet runoff, from space. The findings revealed that Greenland's meltwater runoff has risen by 21% over the past four decades and has become 60% more erratic from one summer to the next.

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Increasing sea levels caused by melting ice heightens the risk of flooding for coastal communities worldwide and disrupts marine ecosystems in the Arctic Ocean. It can also alter patterns of ocean and atmospheric circulation which affect weather conditions around the planet.

The observations of the study can be used to verify how climate models, that are computer generated simulation of the Earth's climate system, simulate ice sheet melting phenomenon. This in turn will allow better predictions of how much Greenland will raise the global sea level in the future as extreme weather events become more common.

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