Greenland ice sheet
Recent melting

From the 1960s to the 1980s an area in the North Atlantic which included southern Greenland was one of the few locations in the world which showed cooling rather than warming. This location was relatively warmer in the 1930s and 1940s than in the decades immediately before or after. More complete data sets have established trends of warming and ice loss starting from 1900 (well after the start of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on global carbon dioxide levels) and a trend of strong warming starting around 1979, in line with concurrent observed Arctic sea ice decline. In 1995–1999, central Greenland was already 2 °C (3.6 °F) warmer than it was in the 1950s. Between 1991 and 2004, average winter temperature at one location, Swiss Camp, rose almost 6 °C (11 °F).

Consistent with this warming, the 1970s were the last decade when the Greenland ice sheet grew, gaining about 47 gigatonnes per year. From 1980–1990 there was an average annual mass loss of ~51 Gt/y. The period 1990–2000 showed an average annual loss of 41 Gt/y, with 1996 being the last year the Greenland ice sheet saw net mass gain. As of 2022, the Greenland ice sheet had been losing ice for 26 years in a row, and temperatures there had been the highest in the entire past last millennium – about 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) warmer than the 20th century average.

Several factors determine the net rate of ice sheet growth or decline. These are:

When the IPCC Third Assessment Report was published in 2001, the analysis of observations to date had shown that the ice accumulation of 520 ± 26 gigatonnes per year was offset by runoff and bottom melting equivalent to ice losses of 297±32 Gt/yr and 32±3 Gt/yr, and iceberg production of 235±33 Gt/yr, with a net loss of −44 ± 53 gigatonnes per year.

Annual ice losses from the Greenland ice sheet accelerated in the 2000s, reaching ~187 Gt/yr in 2000–2010, and an average mass loss during 2010–2018 of 286 Gt per year. Half of the ice sheet's observed net loss (3,902 gigatons (Gt) of ice between 1992 and 2018, or approximately 0.13% of its total mass) happened during those 8 years. When converted to sea level rise equivalent, the Greenland ice sheet contributed about 13.7 mm since 1972.

Between 2012 and 2017, it contributed 0.68 mm per year, compared to 0.07 mm per year between 1992 and 1997. Greenland's net contribution for the 2012–2016 period was equivalent to 37% of sea level rise from land ice sources (excluding thermal expansion). These melt rates are comparable to the largest experienced by the ice sheet over the past 12,000 years.

Currently, the Greenland ice sheet loses more mass every year than the Antarctic ice sheet, because of its position in the Arctic, where it is subject to intense regional amplification of warming. Ice losses from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet have been accelerating due to its vulnerable Thwaites and Pine Island Glaciers, and the Antarctic contribution to sea level rise is expected to overtake that of Greenland later this century.
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