Greenland is melting faster than first thought, researchers say in a new study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. By reconstructing the mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet over the last 46 years, researchers have found that ice loss has increased nearly six times faster than they have originally believed. The increase began in the 1980’s and has only been rising since. Eric Rignot, co-author of the study, summarized that “the study places the recent (20 years) evolution in a broader context to illustrate how dramatically the mass loss has been increasing in Greenland in response to climate warming.”
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The study also spells bad news for the future of many major cities. New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Mumbai will all be affected by the rise in sea levels and nearly 50% of the population lives in cities that would be affected. While the rise will be slow, Greenland has enough ice to raise global levels 23 feet overtime and the sea will begin to swallow shorelines. Rignot echoes that sentiment saying, “As glaciers will continue to speed up and ice/snow melt from the top, we can foresee a continuous increase in the rate of mass loss, and a contribution to sea level rise that will continue to increase more rapidly every year.”
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Although Greenland is always losing mass in cycles due to normal changes in weather, the rate at which it is melting now is the issue. The study estimates that the amount of ice lost since 1980 is more than has been lost in a thousand years. The rate is currently 50% higher than before industrialization and 33% higher than a century prior, according to a 2018 Danish study.
