A study of satellite images found that an estimated 11,000 square miles of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted over the past 30 years, giving way

Global warming is turning Greenland green.

Parts of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers that melted over the past three decades have been replaced by wetlands, shrub vegetation and areas of barren rock, according to a new study that used satellite images to track changes since the 1980s.

The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports, raise concerns about how Greenland’s retreating ice could threaten the stability of the landscape, exacerbate rising sea levels and contribute further greenhouse gas emissions in areas that have turned into methane-producing wetlands.

Greenland is often considered “ground zero” for the climate crisis because even small shifts in temperature can have outsize impacts across the entire Arctic region — and around the world. Scientists have estimated that if the Greenland ice sheet were to melt completely, it could raise global sea levels by more than 23 feet.

  • Lord Wiggle@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    When Greenland is Turing green, we’d have to call it Whiteland or the joke doesn’t work anymore.

    • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      We’d need to deescalate global warming so much that it literally becomes global cooling.

      Although even Greenland would not be green anymore.

    • Siegfried@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      They can start selling iced cakes and make them selves famous for that… I have a few NSFW options aswell

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      cheap thermal energy turns Reykjavik into a world-class carbon neutral meth lab and paves the country with it.

      Because that’s the only ice they’re gonna have in half a century.

    • mods_are_assholes@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Not all of us, the rich will be fine in their bunkers till their security guards kill them and then take over.

      Ad nauseum till one guard is left with all the women and food.

      I’m writing a story about it, like mad max but without the streak of human decency.