Alarming yet also entirely unsurprising:
“Greenland lost a record amount of ice during an extra warm 2019, with the melt massive enough to cover California in more than four feet (1.25 meters) of water, a new study said.
“That’s far more than the yearly average loss of 259 billion tons (235 billion metric tons) since 2003 and easily surpasses the old record of 511 billion tons (464 billion metric tons) in 2012, said a study in Communications Earth & Environment.”
This works out to 16.9 million kg melted per second across 2019.
Per second.
Lest we pretend this is normal:
“The study showed that in the 20th century, there were many years when Greenland gained ice.”
Yes, there is natural variation.
No, this is not normal.
“Last year’s Greenland melt added 0.06 inches (1.5 millimeters) to global sea level rise. That sounds like a tiny amount but “in our world it’s huge, that’s astounding,” said study co-author Alex Gardner, a NASA ice scientist. Add in more water from melting in other ice sheets and glaciers, along with an ocean that expands as it warms — and that translates into slowly rising sea levels, coastal flooding and other problems, he said.”
Cue nervous laughter.