'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Greenland is experiencing its most significant melting event of the year as temperatures in the Arctic surge. The amount of ice that melted on Tuesday alone would be enough to cover the entire state of Florida in two inches of water.
It's the third instance of extreme melting in the past decade, during which time the melting has stretched farther inland than the entire satellite era, which began in the 1970s.
Greenland lost more than 8.5 billion tons of surface mass on Tuesday, and 18.4 billion tons since Sunday, according to the Denmark Meteorological Institute. While this week's total ice loss is not as extreme as a similar event in 2019 — a record melt year — the area of the ice sheet that's melting is larger.
"It's a significant melt," Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, told CNN. "July 27th saw most of the eastern half of Greenland from the northern tip all the way to the southern tip mostly melted, which is unusual."
As human-caused climate change warms the planet, ice loss has increased rapidly. According to a recent study published in the journal Cryosphere, Earth has lost a staggering 28 trillion tonnes of ice since the mid-1990s, a large portion of which was from the Arctic, including the Greenland ice sheet.
"In the past decade, we've already seen that surface melting in Greenland has become both more severe and more erratic," said Thomas Slater, a glaciologist at the University of Leeds and a co-author on that report. "As the atmosphere continues to warm over Greenland, events such as yesterday's extreme melting will become more frequent."
Although the current ice meltdown in Greenland isn't record-setting, the magnitude at which these events occur is a clear signal of how climate change is creating more melt periods.
"Overall, we're seeing that Greenland melts more often," said Scambos, who also authors the National Snow and Ice Data Center's Greenland updates. "In previous decades or centuries, it's extremely rare to get above freezing temperatures at the summit of Greenland."
In 2019, Greenland shed roughly 532 billion tons of ice into the sea. During that year, an unexpectedly hot spring and a July heat wave caused almost the entire ice sheet's surface to begin melting. Global sea level rose permanently by 1.5 millimeters as a result.
As Greenland's surface continues to thaw, Slater said coastal cities around the world are vulnerable to storm-surge flooding, especially when extreme weather coincides with high tides. Melting from Greenland is expected to raise global sea level between 2 and 10 centimeters by the end of the century, he added.
Massive ice sheets can melt rapidly when the air temperature is warm. But warmer ocean water is also eroding the ice sheet around the edges.
As humans release heat-trapping greenhouse gas, the warming atmosphere thaws the fresh white ice — which reflects the sun's energy back into space — on the surface. That exposes the darker ice below which absorbs solar energy and causes more melting.
Additionally, warmer coastal water melts the ice sheet around the edges, breaking off massive icebergs that contribute to sea level rise.
Scientists say the trends at which climate change is accelerating are quite clear, and that unless emissions are curbed, such extreme events will continue to occur more frequently.
"While such events are concerning, the science is clear," Slater said. "Meaningful climate targets and action can still limit how much the global sea level will rise this century, reducing the damage done by severe flooding to people and infrastructure around the world."
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.