Greenland has been experiencing one of the big wildfires in its history in the last workweek . The wildfire is estimated to stretch between 5 and 15 solid kilometre ( 1.9 to 5.8 straightforward mi ) , with locoweed reaching up to 2 km ( 1.2 mile ) high in the air , as reported inlocal mass medium .
The unexpected outcome , 150 kilometers ( 95 mi ) from Sisimiut in Western Greenland , was also find by both NASA and the European Space Agency ( ESA ) . Both scientific mental home used their Earth - monitoring satellites to analyze the area from space , producing unbelievable view of the event as well as collecting important data regarding wildfires in the part .
consort toNASA ’s Earth Observatory , the first catching of fires in the area was on July 31 by the Aqua and Terra satellites . The more elaborated image was then snapped on August 3 by Landsat 8 . ESA ’s Sentinel-2B also looked at the region on the same daylight .
Professor Jessica McCarthy from Miami University shared onTwitterthat she think the firing is burning through peat since it is likely common there . Anotherseries of tweetsfrom Professor Stef Lhermitte of the Delft University of Technology explained preliminary psychoanalysis suggests that Greenland is have an unusually mellow number of wildfire this year .
The two researchers did some initial assessments but it will take some metre to form out the bigger painting of how and why this wildfire happen . For example , there is no foregone conclusion on what begin the fire , although it has been suggested that a lightning strike might have alighted the tundra , which is currently free of ice due to the crawfish glacier .
The effects of globose warming have been particularly acute in Greenland . Both the ocean and the air around the big island has becomesignificantly warmerin the last few decades . These are both contributing to the changesGreenland is experiencing , although scientists are unsure which one , if either , is the predominant drive .
“ What scientist do know is that warm Arctic temperature – and a darken surface of the Greenland ice sheet – are causing so much summer melting that it is now the dominant factor in Greenland ’s contribution to ocean level rise , ” Ian Joughin , a glaciologist at the University of Washington , say in astatement .
“ Greenland ’s summer melt season now lasts 70 days longer than it did in the other seventies . Every summer , warmer air temperature cause melt over about half of the surface of the ice canvas – although recently , 2012 saw an extreme event where 97 percent of the ice sheet experienced melt at its top bed . ”
