Ice on Land Continues to Dwindle
If the ice that blankets Greenland completely melts away, global sea levels would rise by 24 feet (7 meters). While it won’t all disappear overnight or even in the next few decades, recent trends paint a very worrying picture. Since 2002, the Greenland ice sheet has lost roughly 268 billion metric tons of ice per year on average. The annual record for ice loss occurred in 2019, which saw 532 billion metric tons vanish due to a staggering heat wave and bizarrely sunny skies. The loss raised ocean levels by 0.01 inches (1.5 millimeters), per the Arctic Report Card. That seemingly small rise is both a reminder that the sea level has risen roughly a foot (30 centimeters) since the start of the Industrial Revolution and a harbinger of what’s to come. The rate of rise is on track to quicken this century as the ice on Greenland, along with glaciers elsewhere, and the massive Antarctic ice sheet continue to melt.
Sea level rise is already harming coastal infrastructure, and the impacts will worsen in the future. But the melting ice sheet isn’t the only warning sign of what’s happening as temperatures rise in the Arctic.
