Earlier this week the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released a press statement describing an unusual melt event in Greenland, where, within a 4-day span, 97 percent of the island’s surface ice thawed. NASA’s press release, titled “Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Melt”, quickly sent national and international media outlets into overdrive covering this “unprecedented” melt event. Except, NASA botched the title of its press release and inaccurately described the melt event as “unprecedented”. According to the release similar melt events can be expected to occur every 150 years and the last recorded event happened in 1889. This would make the recent event unusual but far from unprecedented.
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