Greenland ice melts: In three days 18 billion tons of water were created

The water on the coast of Greenland seems calm, but pools gathered in the icebergs of the region are a sign that a transformation is developing higher in the ice layer.

Some days of extremely warm weather in the area has caused rapid melting, seen by the rivers of molten water flowing into the ocean. The temperatures have been about 10 degrees warmer than normal for this period of the year, scientists told CNN.

The amount of ice that melted in Greenland between July 15th and 17th alone, 6 billion tonnes of water a day, would suffice to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to data from the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre.

Melting last week is not normal, given the climate average 30 to 40 years, said Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow Data and Ice Centre at Colorado University.

Every summer, scientists worry that they will see a repeat of the record merger that occurred in 2019 when 532 billion tons of ice melted into the sea. An unexpected hot spring and a hot July wave that year triggered the melting of almost the entire ice surface. As a result, the global sea level rose forever by 1.5 mm.

Greenland holds enough ice, which if all melts can raise sea levels by 5 feet [7.5 m] worldwide.