In the past few months, we saw an intense Heat Dome brutalizing the European countries. The dome of heat as per forecast moved over Greenland, causing the surface melting of snow and ice.
With Twitterati signaling the beginning of the end, we have to dig an inch more in-depth into what’s causing this phenomenon. The recent trend in temperatures of Greenland is about 10-15 degrees Fahrenheit above average.
Satellite images of Greenland show the presence of melt sheets on the Greenland ice sheet. Home to one of the most significant ice sheets in the world about 60% of the ice, show surface melting of about 1 millimeter. Though the number might not raise alarms for the layman, billions of tons of ice being dissolved in a day are sending a surge of meltwater into the oceans.
Small amounts of sea-level rise have a significant impact on low lying areas, which increases the risk of higher storm surges, flooding, and altercation in groundwater in the coming decades. About a millimeter of the rising in sea level a year is just from Greenland and another fraction of a millimeter from Antarctica.
Heatwaves seem like a common term used concerning the Arctic, but the human-caused warming has manifested itself into hotter heat waves. The human contribution to the recent rise in sea level can be attributed to their excessive carbon emissions which are trapped in the earth’s atmosphere and raise the temperature.
Experts suggest curbing carbon emissions by increasing the use of alternative power sources such as installing solar panels and wind farms.
Another set of lobbyists claim that climate models cannot be trusted as they have increased variability. Even in the preexisting sources of renewable energy coal is kept as a backup as total dependency on solar on wind does not meet the energy needs of a nation.