The Greenland Ice Sheet; East Greenland – Ammassalik District (Image Credit: Kitty Terwolbeck).
This poem is inspired by recent research, which has found that Greenland is becoming darker and warmer due to a weather pattern that is pushing fresh snowfall away from its ice sheet.
The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second largest mass of ice on Earth, holding enough water to raise global sea levels by 7.2 metres. It has warmed by approximately 2.7 degrees Celsius since 1982 and is currently experiencing what is thought to be the greatest melt and runoff rates in in the last 7,000 years. The albedo of the Greenland Ice Sheet (i.e. the fraction of light that is reflected by a body or surface) has decreased over recent decades, meaning that more of the sunlight is being absorbed instead of reflected, thereby contributing to enhanced surface melt and mass loss. However, it has been unclear as to whether this darkening is due to increased impurities in the snow, larger snow grain sizes, or both.