For the first time in history, precipitation fell on Greenland’s highest peak, which is about 3,000 meters above sea level, in the form of rain instead of snow. Data has been collected since 1950 by the National Snow and Snow Data Center.
The data also reveals that temperatures at the site last weekend, when precipitation was recorded, rose above zero degrees for the third time in the past 10 years.
According to the US network CNN, the hot air led to intense rain that dumped 7 billion tons of water into the mantle. As a result, the amount of ice lost was seven times greater than normal at this time of year.
These weather events are evidence that Greenland is warming rapidly, said Ted Schampos, a research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado. “What’s happening is not just a hot decade or two in a wrong weather pattern,” he told CNN. “This is unprecedented.”
Climate change is also being tracked at the site by the National Science Foundation’s Summit Station, which is located at the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet.
It has been operating year-round to monitor extreme changes since 1989. Most of the weekend’s rain fell from the southeast coast to Summit Station.
By July, the Greenland ice sheet had already experienced one of the most significant melting events of the past decade. That amount would be enough to submerge the state of Florida in two inches of water. This was the third severe thaw in the past decade.
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