Greenland's Ice Sheets

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a time-lapse model of the melting ice-sheets in Greenland on January 21, 2014:




It shows the displacement of "old ice" during summer warming events over time. Basically, this video shows how the Greenland ice sheet is increasing its rate of melting over time. The albedo effect is the reflectivity of surface substratum-- ice in the arctic typically reflects 80% of solar radiation back into the atmosphere, versus oceanic surfaces, which absorbs 90% of solar radiation. The absorbed heat becomes trapped in the atmosphere, thus intensifying the process, known as a positive feedback loop. All expectations from the model here indicate an almost complete reduction of the greenland ice sheet by the middle of the century--- that's only 35 years away.

For more information, go read this article here