the melting ice for 2025 betrays profound changes that were not expected

Greenland is the second largest mass of ice on Earth. Coverage several kilometers thick. Who experienced for 2025, a significant imbalance. A loss of 600 billion tonnes. Enough to raise the level of the oceans by 1.5 millimeters, or 40% of the total rise recorded last year.

Yet for 2025, what researchers call the mass balance Greenland surface area (SMB) – snowfall versus melting ice – stands at 50 billion tonnes. The volume of surface ice earned over the year by theice sheet. A figure that seems positive. But which still marks a fall of 320 billion tonnes below its average for the period 1981-2010. And that is not enough to compensate for the losses due to the iceberg formation. Far from there…

A study published this week by researchers from the University of Columbia (United States) is more specifically interested in the causes of this phenomenon. The increase in temperatures is not solely responsible. Unusual high pressure conditions are believed to be responsible for more than half of the ice lost in Greenland for 2025. These conditions, for example, prevented the cloud formation on the southern ice sheet. And allowed to the rays of Sun reach the ice directly to melt it more effectively.

Too clear sky melts the ice

But less than clouds, it also means less fresh snow. More exactly 50 billion tonnes less than the average for the period 1980-1999. This deficit in snowfall also left exposed ice clouded with dust which, from color dark, absorb the heat instead of thinking about it like white snow does. Enough to further accelerate the melting of surface ice.

"These atmospheric conditions are becoming more and more frequent, worries Marco Tedesco, researcher, in a interview at Columbia University. This is probably the result of the undulations of the jetstream which, in our opinion, are linked in particular to the disappearance of snow cover in Siberia, the disappearance of sea ice and the differences in gears at which temperatures rise in theArctic relative to latitudes averages under the effect of global warming. "

Now the climate models do not include this data. And the simulations seem to ignore half of the ice mass losses due to global warming. A situation that Columbia researchers are calling for to rectify. All the more urgent as the total thaw of Greenland could make rise to sea level no less than seven meters!

Greenland: 600 billion tonnes of ice melted in two months

Greenland's ice melts a little more each year as global warming intensifies. In the summer for 2025, more than 600 billion tonnes of ice melted, raising the global level of the oceans.

Article by Julie Kern published on 20/03/2023

During the summer for 2025, particularly soft in the Arctic, 600 billion tonnes of ice melted in Greenland. This is more than double the average annual loss of ice between 2002 and 2024. A disturbing finding made in a study published in Geophysical Research Letters.

" We knew that last summer was particularly hot in Greenland, melting the ice around the ice cap. But the numbers are really huge Says Isabella Velicogna, the study's first author.

The ocean rose 2.2 millimeters in the space of two months

It is the analysis of data collected by two satellites of the Nasa, Grace and Grace-Fo, who was able to uncover this extraordinary ice melt. Scientists have applied a method, called " mass budget method », which calculates the difference in the balance sheets mass between the ice cap and the ice flowing at the periphery.

The melting of the Greenland ice sheets contributed to the rise of the oceans. According to NOAA report, the Arctic loses nearly 267 billion tonnes of ice each year (before 2024). This water flows into the oceans and increases their level by about 0.7 millimeters per year.

With 600 billion tonnes of ice lost in just two months, ocean levels have risen 2.2 millimeters according to NASA.

On the other side of the Earth, in Antarctica, the ice is also inexorably melting, but an area east of the ice continent seems to be growing due to heavy snowfall.