The 'scary' reality behind photo of pristine sea in Greenland

Sled dogs are seen running through water where ice used to be in Greenland. Photo / Steffen Olsen

A scientist has captured an image which shows the stark reality of melting ice in Greenland.

Steffen Olsen, of the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), says the image is described as "rapid melt".

Experts say temperatures have soured in recent weeeks which lead to the early arrival of Greenland's annual ice melt, reports Yahoo!

Ice climatologist at the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, Jason Box said: "The melting is big and early."

The communities in Greenland relied heavily on the sea ice to survive for transport, hunting and fishing.

"Extreme events, here flooding of the ice by abrupt onset of surface melt, call for an increased predictive capacity in the Arctic," he said.

Satellite images show that Greenland is not the only area seeing unheard-of melting.

The Himalayas are now melting twice as fast as they used to.

The Asian mountain range, which includes Mount Everest, has been losing ice at a rate of about one per cent a year since 2000, according to a study in the journal Science Advances.