What's going on with the Greenland Ice Sheet?

The meltwaters from the massive Greenland Ice Sheet contributed 0.06 of an inch to the average global sea level rise in 2019. If all of the ice on Greenland melted out, the global sea level would rise by a whopping 7 meters or 24 feet.

Greenland ice loss for 2020 was above average, but not a record.

So far for 2021, the Greenland melt extent has been well above the 1981-2010 mean, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

For the first time in recorded history, rain was reported for several hours while temperatures were above freezing on Aug. 14, 2021, at the highest point on Greenland (Summit Station), which is at an elevation of 10,551 feet above sea level.

This is also the third time in less than a decade and the latest date on record that temperatures were above freezing with wet snow.

There has been a steady decline of ice on Greenland since 2002 after an extended period of stability before 1990.

From September 2018 to August 2019, the Greenland ice Sheet lost 532 +/- 58 billion metric tons of ice, while that number was down to 293 +/- 66 from September 2019 to August 2020.

Overall since 2008, the average annual ice loss for the Greenland Ice Sheet has been 268 +/- 14 billion metric tons per year.

Key quote from the NOAA Climate.gov report...

“The Greenland Ice Sheet has lost ice every year now since 1998. Any ice loss is not helpful for maintaining the ice sheet. Even small years of ice loss add up," said Twila Moon, lead author of the ARC Greenland Ice Sheet chapter.” Cumulative sea level rise is already harming coastal infrastructure around the globe, and the impacts will worsen into the future. “Some places, for example, the U.S. Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, will see more sea level rise than other places in the world," she said.