Instead of snow, the icy island of Greenland experienced heavy rainfall.

Last month, the first-ever heavy rainfall occurred on the ice-covered island of Greenland, with approximately 7 billion tons of water falling. This foreshadowed a future that would alter sea levels worldwide and potentially submerge numerous cities.

The downpour was caused by warm, humid air that had persisted for several days, spreading from the southwest of Greenland. On the morning of August 14th, the temperature at the top of the 3,216-meter-high Greenland ice sheet exceeded freezing point, reaching a high of 0.48℃. This was particularly shocking because temperatures above freezing occurred at the end of Greenland's summer. At this time of year, the lack of snow would expose the ice sheets, leading to more runoff and water flowing into the oceans.

According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), the two consecutive days of rain resulted in approximately 872,000 square kilometers of melted ice.².

Two years ago, a group of climate scientists wrote in the scientific journal Nature that if Greenland continues to melt, regardless of the worst-case scenario, tens of millions of people could still be at risk from annual flooding and displacement by 2030 – less than nine years from now.

At the same time, by the end of this century, when Antarctica—which contains more ice than Greenland—enters a catastrophic melting phase, the number of people affected by annual flooding worldwide could reach nearly half a billion.

Between 1992 and 2017, Greenland and Antarctica lost a combined total of 6.4 trillion tons of ice. Ice melt in Greenland is a result of global warming, causing surface melting. In Antarctica, much of the ice loss is due to ocean water melting glaciers, causing water to flow from land into the sea. The rate of ice melt in both Greenland and Antarctica is accelerating, having increased sixfold since the 1990s.

Outside of Antarctica, the Greenland ice sheet contains four times more ice than all other glaciers and ice fields on Earth combined. Greenland is the world's largest island, with an area of ​​2.16 million square kilometers.²Greenland, 36,000 times the size of Manhattan, has 80% of its surface covered by ice, in many places up to 3,000 meters thick. The remaining 20% ​​of Greenland is roughly the size of Sweden. With a population of just over 56,000, it is one of the most sparsely populated places in the world.

Khanh Ha