Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Greenland's ice sheet
has melted to a point of no return, according to new study
Greenland is the largest
island in the world with a population of only 56,000, thus, it is the least
densely populated territory in the world. Despite the name, nearly 80% of Greenland’s
surface is covered by a permanent white ice sheet, which is seen only in
Greenland and Antarctica. The ice sheet stretches 2,400 km long and 1,100 km
wide with a thickness of two to three thousand meters. Also, there are glaciers
and small ice caps around the periphery. Combined, the ice on this northern
island is 2,850,000 cubic kilometers, which could raise the global sea levels over
seven meters should it ever melt.
A new study has found
that this vital ice sheet has been melting much faster than previously thought.
Probably, you’ve heard this before and many times. But the researchers have
concluded that the ice sheet melt has already passed a point of no return. So,
even if climate change were stopped or reversed, natural snowfall would not
replenish the loss of ice. The ice sheet and glaciers have found to be more fragile
than we thought or hoped to be. And it seems that the world has fallen off the
first step of a stairway.
Read the article and
think about how long the stairway might be.
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