backGreenland Ice Loss     4866

Some Key Points

  • Greenland is much smaller than Antarctica, but is shedding a third more ice than Antarctica is at the time or writing.
  • 1 mm of equivalent sea level rise equals 360 Gt of ice mass.
  • Currently Greenland is adding about 0.7mm a year to the global average sea level. It is the largest single source of sea level rise at the current time.
References https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/ice-sheets/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_ice_sheet
http://www.antarcticglaciers.org/glaciers-and-climate/estimating-glacier-contribution-to-sea-level-rise/

Notes

It is worth pointing out that there are 2,850,000 cubic kilometres or 2,612,595 Gt of ice on Greenland and that if it were all to melt it would lead to a 7.36 m rise in sea levels, however it is melting at a rate of 288 Gt each year and at this rate it will take 9071 years to melt.