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Greenland Ice Sheet Spiking Above 1981-2010 Mean, Yet Again

Cap Allon

Off the back of substantial SMB gains over the last two years, the Greenland ice sheet looks set to continue that trend in 2018-19.

Large areas to the west and south-east are gaining RECORD LEVELS for this time of year.

Check out the latest measurements from October 27, 2018:

Left: Map of the surface mass balance today (in mm water equivalent per day). Right: The average surface mass balance for today’s calendar date over the period 1981-2010. Courtesy of DMI.

The Greenland ice sheet is growing again.

The Modern Maximum is over, welcome to the next Grand Solar Minimum.

Top: The total daily contribution to the surface mass balance from the entire ice sheet (blue line, Gt/day). Bottom: The accumulated surface mass balance from September 1st to now (blue line, Gt) and the season 2011-12 (red) which had very high summer melt in Greenland. For comparison, the mean curve from the period 1981-2010 is shown (dark grey). The same calendar day in each of the 30 years (in the period 1981-2010) will have its own value. (DMI)

As ice sheets grow a process called ‘calving’ occurs.

Calving is the breaking of ice chunks from the edge of a glacier and is normally caused by the glacier expanding — not melting!

Read more on that below:

1-Mile Long Rectangular Iceberg Calves from Larsen C

It’s the sun, folks.

GSM

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