2024 Melting On Svalbard "In A Different League", Even When Compared W. Prior Records In 2020, 2022

A new study released this week presents the record ice melt on the Svalbard islands in summer 2024 as a glimpse into a future where other Arctic ice masses, including those on Greenland, could melt faster than currently anticipated. The amount of ice that melted on Svalbard, the archipelago north of Norway in the Barents Sea, made the region one of the most significant contributors to global sea level rise last year.

Ice melt records set in 2020 and 2022 were just marginally greater than previous years, but an extreme and long Arctic heat wave last summer, intensified by weather patterns disrupted by climate change, opened a new page in the record books. The melting was “in a different league,” said Thomas Vikhamar Schuler, professor of geosciences at the University of Oslo and lead author of the research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Schuler said the study shows how what seems like a once-in-1,000 year event “will become normal in the future,” he said. “Usually, we say, ’Oh, let’s talk about the world that our grandkids will experience.’ But this is something within our lifetime.”

The new data measuring the loss of ice confirmed some of scientists’ worst fears about global warming, said James Kirkham, an ice researcher with the British Antarctic Survey who did not contribute to the new study. “I think all glaciologists felt a sense of trepidation when we saw the images coming out of Svalbard last summer,” he said. “But the official numbers are truly appalling.” The scale and speed of ice loss on Svalbard “underlines a sobering reality for the broader climate system,” Kirkham said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19082025/arctic-svalbard-record-ice-melt/