The Greenland ice cap is losing an average of 30m tonnes of ice an hour due to the climate crisis, a study has revealed, which is 20% more than was previously thought.

  • morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    11 months ago

    I had a silly math problem in my head, so I thought I’d let you know:

    • 30m tonnes ice = 30,000,000 m³ water
    • Earth’s surface = 510,000,000 km²
    • Ocean’s surface approx 2/3, so 340,000,000 km²

    That’s 0.088m² or 88 Liters fresh water / km² / hour, which adds 88nm to the sea level each hour, or 0.77mm each year.

    I think, feel free to check :)

      • Zworf@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        And some of the ice contains trapped methane which accelerates the process even more. As does the reduced solar reflection of the diminishing ice cap 😢

  • Kalkaline @lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    11 months ago

    Nothing to see here folks, don’t worry about those polar ice caps, it snowed a little bit today, they should be fine.

  • millie@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    11 months ago

    Seems like a brilliant time to make a business creating an international demand for glacier ice. What could go wrong?