Global warming has accelerated the melting of Greenland glaciers by fivefold in the prior 20 years, said scientists from the University of Copenhagen. The ice cover on Greenland is regularly watched as these ancient ice sheets store so much water that if they entirely melted, sea levels would rise by at least 20 feet (6 meters).
Experts used satellite imagery and 200,000 old images to study the glacier
While in conversation with Reuters, Anders Anker Bjork, an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen's Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, said that the rate of ice melting has entered a new phase in the last 20 years. A survey of a thousand glaciers in the area led to the development.
According to Bjork, there is an evident link between the temperature instabilities we witness on Earth and the rate at which the glaciers are melting. The researcher used satellite imagery and 200,000 vintage images to examine the glacier's development over the last 130 years.
Year 2023 to be the warmest
Global warming has already caused average global temperatures to rise by 1.2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Earlier this month, European Union scientists stated that 2023 will be 'virtually certain' to be the warmest in 125,000 years.
Experts suggest a global drive to reduce the temperature
Jørgen Eivind Olesen, Director of the Climate Institute at Aarhus University, said that if we want to reduce the global temperature, it will take a global drive to regulate and reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Olesen said that he believes they can prepare for those glaciers to continue to melt at increasing speeds.
Glaciers are frequently examined as an indicator of the effects of climate change on Greenland's ice sheet. William Colgan, senior researcher at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), said, "If we start to see glaciers losing mass several times faster than in the last century, we can expect the ice sheet to follow the same path."
