Rain falls at Greenland ice summit for first time on record

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - Rain fell at the highest point on the Greenland ice sheet last week for the first time on record, another worrying sign of warming for the ice sheet already melting at an increasing rate, scientists said on Friday (Aug 20).

"That's not a healthy sign for an ice sheet," said Indrani Das, a glaciologist with Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

"Water on ice is bad… It makes the ice sheet more prone to surface melt."

Not only is water warmer than the usual snow, it's also darker - so it absorbs more sunlight rather than reflecting it away.

That meltwater is streaming into the ocean, causing sea levels to rise. Already, melting from Greenland's ice sheet -the world's second-largest after Antarctica's - has caused around 25 per cent of global sea level rise seen over the last few decades, scientists estimate.

That share is expected to grow, as global temperatures increase.

The rain fell for several hours at the ice sheet's 3,216-metre summit on Aug 14, where temperatures remained above freezing for around nine hours, scientists at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre said.

Temperatures at the ice cap almost never lift above freezing, but have now done so three times in less than a decade.

In total, seven billion tonnes of rain fell across Greenland over three days, from Aug 14 through Aug 16 - the largest amount since records began in 1950.

Rain falls at Greenland ice summit for first time

The record-breaking rain is the latest in a string of warning signs about how climate change is affecting Greenland's ice sheet.

Greenland experienced a massive melting event in late July, when enough ice melted in a single day to cover the US state of Florida in 5cm of water.

"This alarming rain at the summit of Greenland is not an isolated event," said Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist with the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

Along with rising floods, fires, and other extremes, it is one of many "alarm bells" signalling the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, she said.

"We really have to stay laser-focused on adapting, as well as reducing the potential for those to become truly devastating."

This article was originally published on https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/rain-falls-at-greenland-ice-summit-for-first-time-on-record

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