According to a new international study, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing more than three times as much ice each year as they were 30 years ago.
In the last few years, Greenland's melt has gone into hyperdrive, based on 50 different satellite estimates. Between 2017 and 2020, Greenland's average annual melt was 20% higher than at the start of the decade and more than seven times higher than in the early 1990s.
Almost a decade ago, it was assumed that these vast reservoirs of ice would change slowly, but Abdalati said in an email that the study is not as surprising as it is disturbing. We have learned that ice responds rapidly to climate change through satellite observations, field observations, and modeling techniques..”