Greenland’s ice loss is 20 percent higher than previously estimated; this may impact your future too

Greenland’s ice loss is 20 percent higher than previously estimated. By focusing on the margins and at the feet of the glaciers, scientists concluded that one trillion metric tons of lost ice has to be added to the five trillion tons lost since 1992.

These numbers are too extreme to illustrate with the often-used example of the number of Olympic swimming pools. The European Space Agency made a better illustration -in 2021 and not for the Greenland study- to show what a cubicle of ten by ten by ten kilometers looks like. This ice cubicle, projected close to Manhattan, is higher than Mount Everest; it shows what scientists have missed on Ice shedding in Greenland.

The melting ice sheets will add to rising sea levels but may also have other global influences. When the ice melts, it introduces more freshwater into the ocean. These vast quantities can potentially undermine a crucial network of ocean currents known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC).

This system explains why I love to swim in the relatively pleasant temperatures of the North Sea, where one of AMOC’s components, the Gulf Stream, provides warm tropical water across the Atlantic Ocean and guarantees relatively mild temperatures in Northern Europe. It is also one of the reasons why it is colder on the east coast of Canada than in the Netherlands, even though both regions are at about the same latitude.

Possible AMOC collapse

The AMOC transports warm, shallow, and salty water northward; the energy transported is calculated to be approximately 160 times the energy capacity of the entire global electricity system. But there are indications that the Atlantic circulation is weakening, moving less water and heat.

The melting of Greenland’s ice sheets exacerbates this situation by releasing vast amounts of freshwater into the ocean at higher latitudes; imagine adding six of those ice cubes you see in the illustration since 1992.

Simultaneously, surface waters retain more heat, a trend that may be accelerating. Consequently, warmer and fresher waters are less inclined to sink because they are less dense. This shift may jeopardize one of the core driving forces behind these critical ocean currents.

A collapse of the AMOC, or even a significant slowdown, would lead to a climate catastrophe. The far northern regions of Europe would freeze, and average winter temperatures would drop more than ten degrees, with enormous consequences for agriculture and any other aspect of Europe’s economy and living conditions. But its impact will be global, from rising sea levels along the North American East Coast to significant changes in the summer monsoons in areas of Africa and Asia, increasing the likelihood of droughts and famines.

The recent Greenland study uses data from more than 200 glaciers. Only one of these had expanded since 1985. It was just a small gain, but I’m sure climate deniers will be delighted with this finding; it will become their darling glacier, and they will use it to ridicule climate scientists and see doubt about global warming, mentioning the growing glacier.

Defamation lawsuit rightwing bloggers

But hopefully, they don’t always get away with it. One of the scientists often targeted by a network of climate skeptics connected to the fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch is Michael E. Mann. According to The Guardian, a lawsuit brought by Mann over alleged defamation by a rightwing blogger goes to trial this week. The litigation targets two writers; one wrote about Mann as a convicted serial child molester, and the other called his research fraudulent.

It’s a sign of times that scientific facts are undermined by those who use the word truth in every second sentence. This year may end with the election of their cult leader as the president of the United States, who gets his devoted fans excited with the promise of “Drill, baby, drill.”

That is why a lawsuit like the one brought by Michael Mann is so important; harassment of scientists doing their work can’t be accepted. There are not several truths about the basics of climate change, nor are there alternative facts if you don’t like scientific findings.

And drawing conclusions about the ‘hoax’ of climate change because of the limited growth of one glacier isn’t science and isn’t helpful to making this planet great again.

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