Extreme ice melt in Greenland

New findings, published in Nature Communications and based on measurements from ESA’s CryoSat, reveal that Greenland’s meltwater runoff has risen by 21% over the past 40 years. During the past decade alone, runoff from Greenland has averaged 357 billion tonnes per year, reaching a maximum of 527 billion tonnes of ice melt in 2012. The research also shows that between 2011 and 2020, meltwater runoff from Greenland raised the global sea level by one centimetre. Worryingly, one third of this total was produced in just two separate years, in 2012 and 2019 – two hot summers when extreme weather led to record-breaking levels of ice melting not seen in the past 40 years.

Read full story: Meltwater runoff from Greenland becoming more erratic