Tick-Tock. One Million Tonnes - Per Minute

There are roughly 525,600 minutes in a year. There are just over 2,200 pounds in a metric tonne.

The most recent survey shows that the Greenland ice sheet has been shedding one tonne of ice - every minute.  525,000 metric tonnes every year. That's a massive amount of fresh water that pours into the salt water, the seas around Greenland.

That sounds like a long way away but it's felt around the world in various ways, especially in sea level rise.  The faster the Greenland ice sheet slips into the sea the faster the oceans rise.

This is probably not the first time you've heard about this melting Greenland ice sheet. It's probably not the first time you've heard that the science types have discovered it's melting faster than they had foreseen. Yeah, it's been a source of constant surprises. But of all those reports, year upon year, you haven't heard that that the ice melt has slowed. You haven't heard that it has reversed, the ice is building back. That's not happening.

If the entire Greenland ice sheet melts, sea level would rise by six metres. But the researchers said it was not certain that the sheet had passed the point of no return and that cutting carbon emissions will slow the melting, which would take centuries to complete.

“[2019 was] really shocking and depressing in terms of the numbers,” said Ingo Sasgen, of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven, Germany, who led the analysis. “But it’s also not very surprising, because we had other strong melt years in 2010 and 2012, and I expect we will see more and more.” 

Snowfall in Greenland was low in 2019, also due to the blocking pattern, meaning relatively little new ice was added. “The real message is that the ice sheet is strongly out of balance,” Sasgen said.

So we can slow the melt. All we've got to do is slash greenhouse gas emissions. We have to kick the fossil fuel habit and that process has to begin with the dirtiest fuels, the high-carbon/low-value fuels, coal and bitumen.

Sea level rise is a real menace. Greenland is one source, a major to be sure, but there are many others. This is a real worry in some places, including any place that has a sea coast. You know where they don't much care about sea level rise? Alberta is one. No skin off their backsides. Sea level rise only brings "tidewater" that much closer to Athabasca. Hey, what's not to like?