A new study reveals that over three-quarters of sea ice formed in the Arctic Ocean melts before leaving its “nursery.”
Scientists announced Thursday that July equaled, if not surpassed, the hottest month in recorded history. But that was not the only cause for concern.

Greenland's ice sheet melted at its most rapid rate so far this summer summer on Thursday, losing 11 billion tons of surface ice to the ocean, according to data from the Polar Portal, a website run by Danish polar research institutions, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

That's equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools.

"For those keeping track, this means the #Greenland #icesheet ends July with a net mass loss of 197 Gigatonnes since the 1st of the month," tweeted Ruth Mottram, a climate scientist with Danish Meteorological Institute – a number equivalent to around 80 million Olympic swimming pools.

The heat wave that wreaked havoc on Europe in late July has now reached Greenland, causing the ice in the region to melt, Mottram told USA TODAY.

"The melt area has also been a lot bigger when the warm air mass from Europe arrived, but it has also been a long period of warm and dry weather since May and following a dry winter," she said.

"So it’s a little extra push rather than the main cause of the very high ice loss we’ve observed."

With the Arctic's melting season typically continuing to the end of August, the ice sheet is likely to see the substantial melting continue, she told the media outlet.

Greenland's ice sheet is the second biggest in the world, after the Antarctic ice sheet.

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What this means
This is a roaring glacial melt, under the bridge to Kangerlussiauq, Greenland where it's 22C today and Danish officials say 12 billions tons of ice melted in 24 hours, yesterday. pic.twitter.com/Rl2odG4xWj

— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) August 1, 2019
“If we continue as usual, Greenland will melt,” said Andy Aschwanden, associate professor at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, in a NASA study.

“What we are doing right now in terms of emissions, in the very near future, will have a big long-term impact on the Greenland Ice Sheet, and by extension, if it melts, to sea level and human society.”

Every increment of sea-level rise provides a bigger launchpad for storms to more easily flood certain structures.

Columbia University professor of geophysics Marco Tedesco said that the sea-level rise and increased ocean acidity and warmth, combined with increased storm surges and rainfall caused by the melting of glaciers creates a "perfect recipe for an economic and social disruption along our coastlines."

"They have a huge devastating power on our lives, on our economy, on the property of our houses and on our infrastructure," he said to USA TODAY. "And this [devastation] is all adding up."

2012's Hurricane Sandy cost the Metropolitan Transportation Agency $5 billion in lost revenue and what was estimated to be tens of millions of dollars in devastation to Metro-North railroad. Repairs for the damage to the city is still ongoing.

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If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted or moved into the ocean, global sea levels would rise approximately 6.5 meters, according to the UCAR Center for Science Education.

A study by the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology described a direct link between carbon dioxide emissions and sea ice loss, and that for every ton of CO2 emitted, three square meters of sea ice, around 32 square feet, disappears.

But by cutting our greenhouse gas production, Arctic sea ice would almost immediately stabilize, according to study author Dirk Notz.

“If we could halve our emission rates magically next year,” Notz told National Geographic in 2017. “Then we would have twice as long until the ice is gone.”

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