Greenland 40 degrees F warmer than normal

Arctic researcher Steffen Olsen sets out with dogs to retrieve meteorological equipment in Greenland. (Steffen Olsen).
Via Science Alert.
Note that the dogs are walking on a thick sheet of ice under the meltwater.

From Science Alert:

Ice is melting in unprecedented ways as summer approaches in the Arctic. In recent days, observations have revealed a record-challenging melt event over the Greenland ice sheet, while the extent of ice over the Arctic Ocean has never been this low in mid-June during the age of weather satellites.

Greenland saw temperatures soar up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit [22.2 C] above normal Wednesday, while open water exists in places north of Alaska where it seldom, if ever, has in recent times.

It's "another series of extreme events consistent with the long-term trend of a warming, changing Arctic," said Zachary Labe, a climate researcher at the University of California at Irvine.

And the abnormal warmth and melting of ice in the Arctic may be messing with our weather.

Data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center show that the Greenland ice sheet appears to have witnessed its biggest melt event so early in the season on record this week (although a few other years showed similar mid-June melting).

"The melting is big and early," said Jason Box, an ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland.

Box explained that temperatures over the western Greenland ice sheet have been abnormally high while snow has been well below normal.

Marco Tedesco, an ice researcher at Columbia University, added that it has been unusually warm in east and central Greenland, as well. "This has triggered widespread melting that has reached about 45 percent of the ice sheet," he wrote in an email.

Normally, melting this widespread over the ice sheet doesn't occur until midsummer, if even then.

Greenland melt extent, June 2019.
Normal range lies within the light gray and dark grey areas.
Source: The Guardian

If the entire Greenland ice cap melts, sea levels will rise 7 metres (21 feet).  Goodbye Holland.  Goodbye Denmark.  Goodbye London.  Goodbye Melbourne.  Goodbye Bangladesh.  Goodbye world peace.  Don't you think we, mankind, should be terrified rather than complacent?