Comparison of satellite images of the western edge of the Greenland Ice Sheet about 250 miles across, one acquired in 2018 on July 30, and the other on July 31 of this year. Vastly expanded areas of blue in this year’s image are indicative of water at the surface. The gray area, known as the “ablation zone,” is where ice is exposed and experiencing melting.
Credit: NASA Worldview. Animation: Tom Yulsman

As forecast, the dome of heat that brutalized Western Europe has moved over Greenland, where it has triggered a massive spike in surface melting of snow and ice.

In coming days, the abnormal heat could also cause the Arctic’s floating lid of sea ice — which is already trending at record low levels for this time of year — to shrivel even further.

But if you pay attention to Twitter, it almost seems as if we’ve entered the Arctic Apocalypse. So with this story, I decided to take a deep breath and report as dispassionately as I could on what’s happening.

I started by getting […]