The announcement that 11 billion tons dropped off the Greenland ice sheet in one day turned out to be a made-for-television example of the effects of climate change. Dramatic videos of water pouring off the glaciers went viral. But apart from the occasional spectacular image, it's hard to focus the attention of the news media on the Greenland ice sheet. And that's too bad.
Because it's worse than you thought.
Consider: According to NASA's National Snow & Ice Data Center, between June 11 and June 20 of this year, the Greenland ice sheet lost an estimated 80 billion tons of ice. That's an average of 8 billion tons every 24 hours for 10 days, a record warming event. But there was hardly a whisper of news coverage, perhaps because there weren't any exciting videos.
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