Strange weather in 2012

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Greenland's massive ice sheet has melted this month over an unusually large area, Nasa has said.

Scientists said the "unprecedented" melting took place over a larger area than has been detected in three decades of satellite observation.

Melting even occurred at Greenland's coldest and highest place, Summit station.

The thawed ice area jumped from 40% of the ice sheet to 97% in just four days from 8 July.

Although about half of Greenland's ice sheet normally melts over the summer months, the speed and scale of this year's melting surprised scientists, who described the phenomenon as "extraordinary".

Nasa said that nearly the entire ice cover of Greenland, from its thin, low-lying coastal edges to its centre, which is 3km (two miles) thick, experienced some degree of melting at its surface.

"When we see melt in places that we haven't seen before, at least in a long period of time, it makes you sit up and ask what's happening," Nasa chief scientist Waleed Abdalati said.

"It's a big signal, the meaning of which we're going to sort out for years to come."

He said that, because this Greenland-wide melting has happened before, Nasa is not yet able to determine whether this is a natural but rare event, or if it has been sparked by man-made global warming.

Scientists said they believed that much of Greenland's ice was already freezing again.

Until now, the most extensive melting seen by satellites in the past three decades was about 55% of the area.

Ice last melted at Summit station in 1889, ice core records show.

The news comes just days after Nasa satellite imagery revealed that a massive iceberg, twice the size of Manhattan, had broken off a glacier in Greenland.

"This event, combined with other natural but uncommon phenomena, such as the large calving event last week on Petermann Glacier, are part of a complex story," said Nasa's Tom Wagner.

 

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Corn stalks struggling from lack of rain and a heat wave covering most of the country, July 16, 2012, Farmingdale, Ill. The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading. More than half of the continental U.S. is now in some stage of drought, and most of the rest is abnormally dry.

 

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A dead fish in Mitchell Lake in the Ballard Wildlife Management Area near Barlow, Ky., as lack a of rain and excessive heat deplete oxygen from the water, July 18, 2012.

 

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The exposed bottom of the Mississippi River is baked and cracked by extreme heat and lack of rain, July 17, 2012, near St. Louis. The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading, with more than half of the continental United States now in some stage of drought.

 

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Four rows of corn left for insurance adjusters to examine are all that remain of a 40-acre cornfield in Geff, Illinois, July 16, 2012. Over ten days of triple digit temperatures with little rain in the past two months is forcing many farmers to call 2012 a total loss.

 

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Kujawa looks over an ear of corn picked from one of his fields, July 16, 2012 near Ashley, Illinois. The field from which the corn was picked has yielded more than 180 bushels of corn per acre in past years, Kujawa expects to get less than 15 bushels per acre from this year's drought-damaged crop. According to the Illinois Farm Bureau the state is experiencing the sixth driest year on record.

 

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Cattle wait in pens before an auction sale in Conway, Ark., July 17, 2012. Many ranchers are selling their livestock during drought conditions rather than pay high prices for hay. The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading.

 

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Sunflowers droop in the Oklahoma heat near Woodward, Okla., July 18, 2012. The nation's widest drought in decades is spreading, with more than half of the continental United States now in some stage of drought and most of the rest enduring abnormally dry conditions.