Record melt: Greenland lost 586 billion tonnes of ice in 2019
Nuuk: 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 of water, a new study said.
After two years when summer ice melt had been minimal, last summer shattered all records with 586 billion tons (532 billion metric tons) of ice melting, according to satellite measurements reported in a study Thursday.
That's more than 140 trillion gallons (532 trillion litres) of water.
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 Nature Communications Earth & Environment. The study showed that in the 20th century, there were many years when Greenland gained ice.
Not only is the Greenland ice sheet melting, but it's melting at a faster and faster pace, said study lead author Ingo Sasgen, a geoscientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany.
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.
While general ice melt records in Greenland go back to 1948, scientists since 2003 have had precise records on how much ice melts because NASA satellites measure the gravity of the ice sheets. That's the equivalent of putting the ice on a scale and weighing it as water flows off, Gardner said.
As massive as the melt was last year, the two years before were only on average about 108 billion tons (98 billion metric tons). That shows that there's a second factor called Greenland blocking, that either super-charges that or dampens climate-related melting, Gardner said.
In the summer, there are generally two factors in Greenland's weather, Gardner said. Last year, Greenland blocking - a high pressure over Canada that changes the northern jet stream - caused warm southern air to come up from the United States and Canada and flow into Greenland, forcing more melting.
In 2017 and 2018 without Greenland blocking, cooler Arctic air flowed from open ocean into Greenland, making summer milder, he said.
This year, Greenland's summer melt has been not as severe, closer to normal for recent times, said Ruth Mottram, an ice scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute, who wasn't part of Sasgen's research.
Mottram and several other outside scientists said Sasgen's calculations make sense. In her own study this month in the International Journal of Climatology, she found similar results and also calculated that Greenland coastal regions have warmed on average 3 degrees (1.7 degrees Celsius) in the summer since 1991.
The fact that 2019 set an all-time record is very concerning, said New York University ice scientist David Holland, who wasn't part of either study.
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'India stands in solidarity': PM speaks to UAE president, condemns attacks on Gulf nation
New Delhi (PTI): Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday night spoke to the President of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and strongly condemned the attacks on the Gulf nation, saying India stands in solidarity with the UAE in these difficult times.
Mod also thanked the UAE president for taking care of the Indian community living in the Gulf nation, and said New Delhi supports de-escalation, regional peace, security and stability.
"Spoke with President of the UAE, my brother Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Strongly condemned the attacks on the UAE and condoled the loss of lives in these attacks. India stands in solidarity with the UAE in these difficult times.
"Thanked him for taking care of the Indian community living in the UAE. We support de-escalation, regional peace, security and stability," Modi wrote on X.
Iranian strikes across the UAE in the past two days have resulted in three fatalities and injuries to 58 people, including an Indian national, officials confirmed on Sunday.
The Indian Embassy in the UAE, in a social media post, said it was aware of the injury to the Indian national and was in touch with the hospital authorities.
The UAE's defence ministry said it intercepted 165 ballistic missiles, of which 152 were destroyed, and 13 drowned in the sea.
It also destroyed two cruise missiles and 541 Iranian drones, 506 of which were shot down, the ministry said.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a coordinated US-Israeli airstrike on Tehran early Saturday, with the Iranian state media confirming the death on Sunday.
Iran began firing missiles at Israel and the Arab countries in the region in retaliation for the killing of its supreme leader.
