There is another horrifying news, just a few days after NASA satellite imagery revealed that a massive iceberg, twice the size of Manhattan, had broken off a glacier in Greenland.
As per the latest news, a massive ice sheet in Greenland has melted this month over an unusually larger area, which was detected after analysing radar data from the Indian Space Research Organization's ( ISRO) Oceansat-2 satellite. The 'unprecedented' melting is found to be highest ever in three decades of satellite observation. Melting even occurred at Greenland's coldest and highest place, Summit station. The thawed ice area jumped from 40% of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days from July 8 to July 12. Although about half of Greenland's ice sheet normally melts over the summer months, the speed and scale of this year's melting surprised scientists, who described the phenomenon as "extraordinary".Son Nghiem of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was analysing radar data from the ISRO's Oceansat-2 satellite last week when he noticed that most of Greenland appeared to have undergone surface melting on July 12. This event was so extraordinary that at first scientists questioned the result: if it was real or was it due to some data error. Nasa said that nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its centre, which is 3 km thick, experienced some degree of melting at its surface.
NASA is not yet able to determine if this is a natural but rare event, or if it has been sparked by man-made global warming. Scientists believe much of Greenland's ice was already freezing again.
Until now, the most extensive melting seen by satellites in the past three decades was about 55% of the area, but this time it reached 97% - much more severe than earlier. Ice last melted at Summit station before this took place long back in 1889.
These events, one after another, are strict warning to the mankind to avoid the calamity due to global warming.
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