Tim Elam works on deploying the Ice Diver, which if successful will melt its way through the ice with electrical heating. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Greenland's ice has been darkening for two decades, absorbing more sunlight as the melting process accelerates, according to a new study.

Published in European geosciences journal The Cryosphere, the Earth Institute at Columbia University used satellite data to study the darkened ice, as well as the origins of this darker tint. It isn't soot from nearby wildfires that hasbrowned this snow, the study found, but a combination of other factors near the North Pole. Warm weather, combined with lots of solar radiation on clear days, is melting Greenland's snow and ice faster, which is exposing more dust that has been locked under the surface for years and years. In turn, the melting reduces albedo, which leads to increased melting. The cycle feeds on itself and accelerates the loss of snow and ice in Greenland.

"You don't necessarily have to have a 'dirtier' snowpack to make it dark," lead author Marco Tedesco, a research professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, told Science Daily. "A snowpack that might look 'clean' to our eyes can be more effective in absorbing solar radiation than a dirty one. Overall, what matters, it is the total amount of solar energy that the surface absorbs. This is the real driver of melting."

(MORE: Greenland's Melting Ice Provides Small Silver Lining for World's Oceans)

The "melting cannibalism," as Tedesco has called it, has been a fear of climate scientists for a long time, the Washington Post said. It's called "positive feedback," but the name shouldn't encourage optimism, as the process is likely to lead to faster rising sea levels.

The melting of Greenland has other far-reaching impacts on the sea. Introducing this much freshwater into the oceans in such a short time can have major effects on water circulation, according to a recent study published in Nature Communications. And if the ocean circulation gets too out-of-whack, we could see a lot more climate refugees in the future.

"In the extreme case of a breakdown in this global ocean circulation pattern, equatorial regions could become much hotter than they are today and polar regions could become much colder than they are today, and significant fractions of the globe might become unlivable," Tim Dixon, co-author of the study and a geophysics professor at the University of South Florida, told CBC.