Melting Ice

This month, over a period of nine days, one million square kilometers of Arctic sea ice melted. Sea ice extent dropped below five million square kilometers at the earliest date ever.

Also this month, surface thawing on the Greenland ice cap grew from 40% to 97% of the ice cap area over a period of four days.  A NASA scientist first thought the instruments were in error.

Update (April 3, 2013):  A study from the University of Wisconsin connects the unusual melt to low level clouds.

Update (March 7, 2015):  Greenland is the warmest its been in 100,000 years.

Update (January 6, 2016):  A study in Nature Climate Change finds that a type of snow called "firn" that usually stores melting water is now losing its ability to hold more water. That means more melting water running into the ocean.

Update (January 13, 2016):  A study in Nature Communications finds that cloud cover over Greenland traps heat and helps increase the outflow of meltwater. It's amazing we keep finding new ways for climate change to get worse.

Update (April 15, 2016):  Greenland is experiencing record breaking melting for this time of year. Greater than ten percent of the ice sheet is melting more than a month earlier than usual.

Update (June 16, 2016):  The capital of Greenland set a record for June with a high of 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature anomalies for April were far above even the recently established "normal" of 2001 to 2010.

Update (May 31, 2017):  "Solitary waves" observed during the melt seasons of 2010 and 2012 seem to have caused increased ice flow. Rink Glacier saw a 61 percent increase in ice flow in 2012.

Update (July 30, 2017):  Summer snow might mean no net loss on the Greenland ice sheet for the first time in 20 years.