By Bisola Adeyemo
The National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado on Friday, said rain has fallen on the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet for hours after a similar event in 2019.
The ice sheet’s summit was at an altitude of 3,216 metres above sea level and precipitation normally falls as snow.
According to University of Colorado Boulder glaciologist Ted Scambos, Greenland’s ice sheet seeing rainfall for the first time in recorded history is a worrying sign for climate scientists.
“Greenland, like the rest of the world, is changing,”
According to records, hindustantimes.com reported that similar events happened in 2019, 1995 and 2012
“We now see three melting events in a decade in Greenland, and before 1990 that happened about once every 150 years. And now rainfall, in an area where rain never fell. As the heatwave in the [US Pacific] northwest, it’s hard to imagine without the influence of global climate change.
“We are crossing thresholds not seen in millennia… this is not going to change until we adjust what we’re doing to the air.”
According to the Colorado-based National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), on the highest point of the Greenland ice sheet it rained for hours on August 14 and temperatures remained above freezing point for nine hours. “There is no previous report of rainfall at this location, which reaches 3,216m in elevation.”
In another sign that the climate is changing fast, Greenland, which had been experiencing a heatwave alongside much of the northern hemisphere, recently witnessed rainfall for several hours.