Greenland’s ice sheet and the ice-free Artic summer

by Yvonne Su

Photo by Nick Russill

“The predicted year for an ice-free Arctic summer has fallen from 2100 to 2050 to 2030 in only a couple of years. NASA scientist, Jay Zwally, is even putting the date as early as 2012, something our generation will be able to stand witness to.”

In 1912, mankind built the Titanic. It was the biggest and baddest ship ever made at the time; it was believed to be unsinkable.

It sank.

That’s the version many people know. But what is often left out of the story is that the massive icebergs that took down the Titanic broke off from Greenland, the largest island of ice on Earth. Almost a century later, the same icebergs that crushed one of mankind’s greatest symbols of human power is preparing to strike again.

With 10 per cent of the world’s fresh water currently frozen there, the disappearance of Greenland’s ice sheet will cause sea levels around the world to rise by seven meters. For centuries, the ice sheets maintained equilibrium: glaciers and melted water poured into the oceans in the summer and frozen snow replenished the ice sheets in the winter. However, new scientific studies are showing that this equilibrium no longer holds, and Greenland’s ice sheet is now shedding more ice than it is accumulating.

It will take centuries for the world’s great ice sheets to be completely gone, so the immediate threat of a seven-metre sea level rise will not happen in our lifetime.

But as glaciologist Gordon Hamilton puts it, “it will only be the first metre that matters.” And this first metre is predicted to take place by 2100. As research on the Greenland ice sheet is still quite new, however, this prediction may change for better or for worst. This uncertainty can be seen as a blessing or a curse. On the bright side, we are given the chance at changing our ways and swaying the results in our favour. However, it is more likely people will find a way to mentally distance themselves from the impeding dangers of a slowly melting world.

Based on the existing Arctic research, the predicted year for one metre of global sea level rise will fall as more research is conducted on this isolated and mysterious land. The predicted year for an ice-free Arctic summer has fallen from 2100 to 2050 to 2030 in only a couple of years. NASA scientist Jay Zwally is even putting the date as early as 2012, something our generation will be able to stand witness to.

The irregular and accelerated melting of Arctic’s summer ice will act as a metaphor for the first iceberg warning that was sent to the Titanic. There will be one more before the iceberg comes too close and takes down the ship.