Melting ice produces more energy than 10 hydroelectric stations

Greenland's ice is melting so much that the amount of water it produces could power more than 10 of the world's largest hydroelectric projects.

A river formed by melting ice in Greenland.

Each summer, heat and sunlight rise, causing many of Greenland's frozen surfaces to melt, forming fast-flowing rivers and waterfalls that travel to the bottom of the ice sheet to depths of kilometers by rushing over. major cracks and faults.

"There's a lot of gravitational energy stored in the water that forms on the surface, and when it falls, the energy has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, this energy is being converted to heat, increasing the rate melting on both the top and bottom of the iceberg," Professor Poul Christoffersen at the University of Cambridge said in a recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It's part of a loop that shows the effects of climate change could accelerate sea-level rise around the world, the report highlights.

Christoffersen and his colleagues used a radar to measure melting ice and found that up to 82 million cubic meters of water falls from the surface to the bottom of Store Glacier in Greenland every day during the summer. According to calculations, this amount of water generates more energy than the 10 largest hydroelectric power stations in the world combined.

"The heat generated by falling water melts the ice from the bottom up, and the rate we report is unprecedented. Given what we're seeing in climate change at high latitudes, the rate at which the ice melts. could easily double or triple," Christoffersen added.

Unfortunately, there is practically no way to harness this meltwater to produce clean electricity, which can reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are driving its very creation. The Greenland ice sheet is currently the largest contributor to global sea level rise.