Scientists: Greenland ice sheet is melting freakishly early

WASHINGTON -- Greenland's massive ice sheet this week started melting freakishly early, thanks to a weather system that brought unseasonably warm temperatures and rain, scientists say.

While this record early melt is mostly from natural weather on top of overall global warming, scientists said they are concerned about what it means when the melt season begins this summer. This, however, could be temporary.

On Monday and Tuesday, about 12 percent of the ice sheet surface area -- 656,000 square miles -- showed signs of melting ice, according to Peter Langen, a climate scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute. It smashed record for early melting by more than three weeks.

That's normal for late May not mid-April, Langen said.

Normally, no ice should be melting in Greenland at this time of year. Before now, the earliest Greenland had more than 10 percent surface area melting was May 5, 1990.

Even in 2012, when 97 percent of Greenland experienced melt, it didn't have such an early and extensive melt.

Langen said the amount of melt now is not the issue, timing is: "It's nothing for July; it's huge for April."

"It's disturbing," Langen said. "Something like this wipes out all kinds of records, you can't help but go this could be a sign of things we're going to see more often in the future."

What's causing this week's unusual melt is a weather system bringing warm temperatures to Greenland and funneling lots of warmer-than-normal rain up from the south, Langen said.

The rain and above-freezing temperatures help melt the ice.

Greenland's capital, Nuuq, reached 62 degrees Monday, smashing the April record high temperature by 6.5 degrees. Inland at Kangerlussuaq, it was 64 degrees, warmer than St. Louis and San Francisco.