Above the Greenland Ice Sheet
by John A. Barrett
Art by Katerina Kan
On June 13, 2019, from an aircraft at over 30,000 feet, I looked down upon a swath of Greenland’s great ice-sheet, covering 80% of the island’s surface, representing 10% of the World’s freshwater.
For eons volcanoes erupted, the ice-age retreat carved fjords with steep-sided valleys, glaciers compressed, sea-ice melted and flowed with seasoned warmth, icebergs severed. Winter ebbed sea-ice back to freezing mass, plentiful snow recompressed glacial ice. The bright white expanse reflected heat back into space and contributed to maintaining the global heat balance. The cycle, as predictable as our spinning earth.
The icefield, strewn with rocky crags, glaciers cutting and separating through mountain passes. Claw-like fingered fjords shimmer with summer-melts, multi-glacial fragmented icebergs flow in the deep-blue tinges of the collective sea. Other glaciers compress all the way to the sea, the more distinct icebergs, enormous, scaling down to large and medium-size, to thousands of white dots, lending sizeable credence to their floating ability. Natural phenomena, as sea currents and winds, influence the icebergs’ speed and flow routes through maritime sensitive areas.
Further across this great land, the ocean-fed fjords give way to the high mountains. Their rocky peaks and crags trailing like white tendrils towards the surrounding white glacial dome spread out like tablecloths and crested by rows of peaks stacked up against other peaks as if to show respective superiority.
The statistics are impressive but simply stated, the ice sheet dome rises to a height of 3 kilometers (almost 2 miles), which if totally melted, could raise global sea levels by 7 meters (23 feet). The ice sheet area alone corresponds to 14 times the size of England. Although in recent years the ice-free area around the coastlines has steadily increased to an equivalent area, the size of Germany. A lessened ice sheet and other polar-ice depletions mean, less heat is reflected into space and is instead, absorbed by the earth, which in turn increases global warming, that further melts more ice at increasingly alarming rates.
My flight across this vast land was less than two months before it was revealed the Greenland ice-sheet had experienced its largest single-day volume loss on record due to much higher than normal temperatures. A realization, the spectacular sights I have looked down upon, could in time (unknown), be gone forever.
Leading scientific authorities have estimated the enormity and consequences of such increases in temperature and global warming predictions, effectively lessening the time we have to slow down or approach an acceptable global heat balance between incoming and outgoing heat.
According to the Smithsonian, an estimated 12.5 billion tons of ice poured from the Greenland ice sheet into the ocean. This amount of ice collectively lost in a single 24-hour period in August 2019, was enough to cover the area of Florida in almost five inches of water. The UN Meteorological Organization said the hot air from northern Africa had surpassed European high temperature records by up to 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit), resulting in Greenland’s mass ice loss. In July 2019 alone, it lost 160 billion tons of ice through surface melting, enough water for 64 million Olympic sized swimming pools. Just surface melt (no sea melt).
Whatever the source of information, the magnitude of this ice melt is undisputable. It is also well documented that other factors have contributed to global warming, but considering only the ice melts in Greenland and other polar regions, permafrost foundations expansions will present further challenges.
Without taking a soapbox stance, much of the human race has proven resilient, but it often takes impending disasters for people to believe what is happening around them, to take notice and act. We have the technologies and abilities to achieve a sustainable world, but only if we have the collective will to make it happen. Are we up to the challenge? Can we alleviate this hazardous trend for the greater good, and hopefully, the future of mankind? The alternative is unthinkable.
Katerina Kan, Discovery Channel, Oil on Canvas
