Western Greenland experienced one of its hotter summers, as the Danish Meteorological Institute recorded a temperature of 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 degrees Celsius) at the summit of its melting Ice Sheet.

This summer also saw an unusually high number of fires in the Arctic region. Satellite images even captured the flames from space.

Greenland lost around 197 million tons of ice in the month of July alone.

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Like many other places in the world, Western Greenland experienced an intense heatwave this summer. The Danish Meteorological Institute recorded a temperature of 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit (-2 degrees Celsius) at the summit of Greenland's Ice Sheet at the end of July and beginning of August — an extremely high number for this region (although the record still lies at 36.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius). The summer also saw an unusually high number of fires in the Arctic region, an event that was even visible from space.

"That's not a record value, but still quite warm. It was the heat that lay around Europe that moved up to Iceland and on to Greenland," one of the Institute's meteorologists, Herdis Damberg, told Danish state broadcaster DR. A rapid study conducted by a team of respected European scientists concluded that the intense temperatures would have been "extremely unlikely without climate change".

Read more: Tiny pieces of plastic have been found in Arctic snow, according to alarming new research

The Arctic lost 2 billion tons of ice within one day on June 13 — twice as much as would be normal for that time of year. 197 million tons of ice melted in the month of July alone, according to climate researcher Ruth Mottram on Twitter.

So while tourists visiting Greenland might expect to see only infinite amounts of ice and snow, the sad reality is that at the moment, they will be confronted with a completely different landscape. One Getty photographer went to explore the landscape this summer and documented the impact of the heatwave during July and August.