The two surviving continental ice sheets on Earth are distributed in Antarctica and Greenland, and they account for about 97% of the Earth's glaciers and 99% of the total ice volume.
In the extreme weather of global warming, the Greenland ice sheet, second only to Antarctica, appears fragile.
Especially this year, under the high temperature of the northern hemisphere, Greenland is no exception – Arctic Greenland is hot!
Over the past month, 6 billion tons of melted ice have poured into the ocean every day in Greenland. Enough ice melts a day to fill 7.2 million Olympic-sized swimming pools.
In the past July, arctic circle temperatures have soared to 32.5°C, and arctic heat is enough to wear short sleeves.
What a sad fact that the ice sheet of Greenland, which covers the world's largest island, is melting at an accelerated rate.
Greenland's accelerated melting seems to be a warning to humanity. Greenland is melting at the fastest rate in a century, and what impact will it have on the planet and the climate?
First, let's take a look at the glacier area of Greenland.
Greenland has the largest glacier in the Northern Hemisphere, with an area of 772,000 square miles (about 1,999,470.82 square kilometers) and a thickness of 1.8 meters, most of which are sea ice in the seawater.
As a result of the accelerated melting of glaciers, temperatures around Greenland will change dramatically, temperatures in this region are likely to continue to rise and sea levels will rise significantly.
It should be vigilant that there is a big difference between Greenland's glaciers and those of the Arctic, which can be regenerated after melting, while Greenland's glaciers, if melted, means that they will disappear forever and can no longer be repaired.
Even if humanity were to start taking effective measures now, the Earth's temperature would slowly cool down and Greenland would stop melting, even so. Those melted glaciers can never be recovered.
It is worth human vigilance that if the trend of global warming is not reversed and controlled, Greenland's glaciers will melt in large areas, which will lead to a significant rise in sea level, the consequences of which will be catastrophic.
If the current situation continues, the glaciers of the whole of Greenland may disappear completely, then the sea level will rise by 7 meters, many land will be covered by the sea, and densely populated areas such as London in the United Kingdom and Bangladesh in Asia will be completely submerged.
If the Greenland ice sheet were to disappear, it would be a heavy blow to humanity and even to the creatures on Earth.
In the face of global warming, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is imperative. But carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that can exist in the atmosphere for a long time, and there is a certain lag between warming and carbon emissions. So the carbon dioxide emitted now has an impact on the next few decades.
Against the backdrop of global warming, it's not just Greenland that's having problems, glaciers elsewhere are melting at an accelerated pace.
In the case of accelerated melting of glaciers, some netizens have proposed that it is possible to follow the example of the mainland in order to alleviate the melting of the Dagu Glacier and "cover it with a quilt".
But in fact, it is not realistic to "cover the quilt" of Greenland glaciers, which is very difficult. So, what are the technical difficulties in "covering the quilt" of the glacier?
The problem of material selection for "quilts"
In August last year, the mainland scientific research team climbed the Dagu Glacier and used geotextile weaving of thermally reflective materials to "cover the glacier with a quilt".
It is not as long as it is a piece of cloth that can prevent glaciers from melting, geowoven fabrics have a high reflectivity, which can better prevent the exchange of heat between glaciers and the outside world, and play a role in keeping glaciers warm.
Two months later, scientists found that the glaciers that "covered the quilt" melted significantly slower than the glaciers without the quilts. In contrast, "covers" do slow glacier melting.
In fact, similar experiments have been reported in Austria and Switzerland in the early years, and they chose white wool blankets to cover glaciers to reduce glacier melting by blocking and reflecting sunlight. But in the end, no certain conclusions were reached.
In addition, scientists have adopted new nanomaterials to act as "quilts", which have better performance, in contrast, can alleviate about 80% of glacier melting, much better than geowovens.
Although the effect is good, the cost of nanomaterials is higher, the cost of geowovens is 1 yuan per square meter, and the cost of nanomaterials is more than 50 times that of it.
Although the "cover quilt" can slow the melting of glaciers, it is only in the experimental stage, compared to covering the entire iceberg with a quilt, the experiment is only a drop in the bucket.
Can all glaciers slow their melting by "covering them"?
From the perspective of the glaciers experimented by scientists, Dagu Glacier is a typical oceanic glacier, which is greatly affected by the oceanic monsoon climate and has more local rainfall, so the rate of glacier accumulation or melting is very fast, and the glacier movement is relatively frequent.
However, for inaccessible and large glaciers, from a practical point of view, this method will have certain limitations.
Greenland glaciers are mostly in the ocean, in addition to the sunlight to melt it, more importantly, the abnormal warming of the ocean's air currents, resulting in its ablation.
If you cover the surface glacier with a "quilt", it will not stop the melting of the bottom glacier.
Most of Greenland (about 84.7%) is covered in snow and ice. Greenland's continental glaciers cover an area of 1,833,900 square kilometers, and their average thickness is about 2,300 meters. With so much glacier area, it is impractical to "cover it with a quilt", and the manpower, material and financial resources consumed are incalculable.
Therefore, "covering the quilt" of Greenland glaciers is unrealistic and futile.
The "quilt" for the glacier only stays in the experimental stage of a small range, and large-scale promotion still has a long way to go. But this does not alleviate the melting of glaciers very well, and only reasonable control of greenhouse gas emissions can play a cooling role.
#Global Warming##Greenland Ice Melting##Scientists Give Glacier Cover Quilts To Slow Down Melting ##Give Glacier Cover Quilts#