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Clear Skies Drove the Biggest-Ever Drop in Greenland’s Ice Sheet

New research suggests that glacier models could be underestimating future melting by half.

An iceberg grounded outside the village of Innarsuit, an island settlement in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland, shown on July 13, 2018.

An iceberg grounded outside the village of Innarsuit, an island settlement in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland, shown on July 13, 2018.

KARL PETERSEN/AFP/Getty Images

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Clear skies and more sunlight over Greenland last summer resulted in the biggest drop in the ice sheet’s mass ever recorded, new research shows.

The phenomenon was linked to an exceptional high-pressure system that prevented the formation of clouds, according to a study led by Marco Tedesco from Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. That suggests climate models that don’t incorporate atmospheric data could be underestimating future melting by about half, Tedesco said in commentary accompanying the research.