Surface melt and total melt-day area for the Greenland Ice Sheet at the end of the 2021 spring season was below the 1981 to 2010 average. Snowfall and rain (minus runoff) added mass to the ice sheet. As of June 20, total mass gain for the ice sheet since September 2020 was slightly above average. The spike from June 25 to June 27 will be discussed in later a post.
Overview of conditions
Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center/T. Mote, University of Georgia
High-resolution image
The total aerial extent of surface melting (total melt-day extent) through June 20 was just over 2.49 million square kilometers (961,000 square miles), 1.5 times below the 1981 to 2010 average of 3.72 million square kilometers (1.44 million square miles). Melting was slightly below average along the west-central ice sheet, and well below average (10 to 12 days behind the average rate) along the southwestern edge of the ice sheet. Limited areas of the north and northwest had slightly above average melting, but the total extent of these areas was low.
Conditions in context
Credit: National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Reanalysis data, National Center for Atmospheric Research
High-resolution image
Average air temperature at 700 millibar (about 10,000 feet) and the average height of the 700 millibar level (a measure of air pressure) summarize springtime weather conditions. Air temperatures above Greenland varied across the ice sheet, with warm conditions in the northwest and cool conditions across the southeast. The region near Thule in the northwest was more than 2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 1981 to 2010 average, with conditions near the major Helheim Glacier in the southeast were about 2 degrees Celsius (4 degrees Fahrenheit) below average.
Air pressure patterns, indicated by the height above average of the 700 millibar level (about 10,000 feet above ground, but higher under high pressure conditions, and lower when low air pressure is present) show an area of moderate high pressure in the northwest of the island and low pressure over the Irminger Sea between Greenland and Iceland.
Greenland is snowy
Figure 3a. This graph shows the estimates of surface mass balance (SMB) for the Greenland Ice Sheet for the 2020 autumn to 2021 spring season (red line) through June 30, 2021 (based on forecast and re-analysis), relative to the 1981 to 2010 average. It also includes several recent years for comparison. SMB is the sum of snowfall and rainfall, minus any evaporation or runoff. The estimates come from the MARv3.11 model based on daily weather measurements and projections.
Credit: Amory et al. 2021, MARv3.11, Xavier Fettweis, Université de Liège, Belgium
High-resolution image
Figure 3b. The top left map shows the total surface mass balance (SMB) over Greenland since September 1, 2020 up to June 20, 2021. The top right map shows the difference from the 1981 to 2010 average, in centimeters of water equivalent. At the bottom is a picture of the west-central area of the Greenland Ice Sheet taken on June 21, 2021, showing persistent snow cover over the fractured ice of the ice sheet.
Credit: Amory et al, 2021
Photo credit: Jason Box, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
High-resolution image
As of June 20, total surface mass balance for the ice sheet was slightly above average total input of snow and rain since September 2020, at about 550 billion tons, 41 billion tons more than average (Figure 3a).
Total snowfall was slightly above average for the ice sheet. Areas that received extra snow this year were across the southeast, where some areas saw 50 to 70 centimeters (20 to 28 inches) more snow water equivalent than average, and to a lesser degree along the western coast (Figure 3b). Large areas of the central and northeastern ice sheet were near-average for the year so far.
Surface mass balance over the ice sheet from September 1, 2020, to June 20, 2021, was about 8 percent above the 1981 to 2010 average, with 7 percent above average snowfall and 10 percent below average melt runoff.
Greenland is snowy
Credit: Amory et al. 2021, MARv3.11, Xavier Fettweis, Université de Liège, Belgium
High-resolution image
Credit: Amory et al, 2021
Photo credit: Jason Box, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS)
High-resolution image
The full post is available here.
HT/Renee H
when it’s snowy it’s “weather”
When it’s sunny, it’s “climate”!
Another psychological phenomenon, which has ramped with global cooling… warming… change, is that when temperature is high it’s above normal, and when low it’s below average.
And they’re cold ‘snaps’, and always turning to warmer weather soon. Always with the implication that cold weather is short-lived and warm weather is the norm.
It’s a tactic that seems to work, as many people really do think they can tell that it’s much warmer now than in the old days.
The reason for increased snowfall is obviously climate change : Warmer air temperature will contain more moisture which translates into more precipitation – any child can see that (viz. Greta Tunberg). This frightening development shows clearly the need to fight climate change.
Your statement is like saying bigger trucks will contain more toys. Whether the truck contains any toys depends on if any toys have been loaded into it, and whether any toys are delivered depends on whether the truck is unloaded.
It is your logic that is more child like.
Andy, you probably wouldn’t be allowed into Missouri. It’s the duty of every smart person to transcend the designer-brain education they were subjected to. Be a devil and doubt something put out there by our betters.
You need to learn some basics, for it to rain the atmosphere is cool ,for it to snow it needs to be cooler, humans call it cold.
I took this comment as sarc, although missing the “/s” tag.
I was hoping that’s what it was.
As did I. The tell: referring to Ste. Grrrrrreta as a child rather than a brave, brilliant autodidact who will save the world.
You got it, Rich Davis!!
There actually wasn’t that much snowfall early in the 2020-2021 deposition season. Greenland had a persistent high pressure system over it early on blocking the lows from moving over it. As the seasons changed the Arctic area flipped and low pressure is now dominant. High pressure is dry, Low pressure is wet.
While your statement that warmer air contains more water vapor is correct, this isn’t the reason Greenland is not melting as fast during the melt season. It is where the upper level highs and lows setup over the northern hemisphere which then determine the storm tracks. Additionally fresh snow increases the albedo. You also might post your source of where the polar regions are getting warmer when the data shows they are not.
http://climatlas.com/temperature/jra55/jra55_80N_t2m_2020.png
Please Andy do a little research and educate yourself.
Assuming for the sake of argument that your claim is true, it still illustrates that the concern over melting glaciers and rising sea levels may be premature. There is probably an optimum average temperature for snow accumulation. What evidence is there that the optimum isn’t at a higher temperature than what has been recorded in the recent past?
Andy’s comment is sarcasm because it has been a cooler year. He is mocking the warmists.
That certainly was my intention, LexingtonGreen. I honestly expected only a few laughs from my idiotic comment.
Very sloppy wording from a professional scientific organisation:
“just over 2.49 million square kilometers (961,000 square miles), 1.5 times below the 1981 to 2010 average of 3.72”
Surely “1.5 times below …3.72” is -1.86 IOW a gain of 1.86 million square kilometers 🙂
Without Olympic sized swimming pool equivalents it has no meaning.
https://electroverse.net/why-is-nobody-talking-about-greenland/
The increased snowfall is from the increased cooling the whole Northern hemisphere has done. The only climate change has been cooling since 2016. The Grand Solar Minimum is in effect Just ask Europe with the no spring they’ve had. Or the Southern Hemisphere with cooling temps ,snow in South America, Africa, Aus, NZ. No illusions there. No Heat either.
I would add the slow rolling of the AMO into it’s cold phase
” Just ask Europe with the no spring they’ve had. ”
Hi Rich T.
Here is Europe, Germany, near Berlin.
First of all, we are way way away from any GSM.
Look at how SC 25 develops in comparison with SC24 by downloading and processing
ftp://ftp.seismo.nrcan.gc.ca/spaceweather/solar_flux/daily_flux_values/fluxtable.txt
and you will understand.
Now to our ‘no spring’.
Indeed we had few of it, that was crazy, especially for our garden because the end of the winter was much too warm. Everything grew and grew.
The cooling behind was then really harsh, and our beautiful, five year old fig died!
But this is nothing new for us: while our winters get warmer and warmer, summer and fall keep rather constant, and the springs get slightly but surely cooler and cooler.
Do you really think it’s due to the Sun?
Then I get a big, big laugh.
Simply because we observe since at least a decade an increase of atmospheric perturbations coming from Northwest Atlantic. Day after day during April, one low pressure area followed the next, entering Europe between UK and Norway.
That had worst consequences because a high pressure area kept standing west to Portugal all the time.
Highs are CW, lows turn CCW. what led to persistent cold air streams sucked between them as there would be a giant aspirator above us.
We did not appreciate.
Nevertheless, we prefer by far a cool spring to the harsh, really cold winters we had earlier: I perfectly recall 1956, 1963, 1979, 1986, and… 2010, the last winter in Berlin having merited to be named so.
J.-P. D.
Nothing new in Berlin so far, as I left Berlin in 1974, we had comparable weather, as the continental eastern part of weatherpatters had been pushed away for just what you described, a German singing musician and talkmaster from the Netherlands composed a respective song 1973-Wann wird’s mal wieder richtig Sommer – When will it be really summer again – Rudi Carell.
So, what exactly will you tell us ?
But as any good alarmist worth his salt knows, that is weather. The few days of heat and low humidity in Washington is Climate Change.
The increased snowfall is from the increased cooling the whole Northern hemisphere has done.”
No, it’s actually the opposite.
Warmer air holds more WV, ergo more snow (if that warmer air stays above 0C wet bulb as it does so).
NH lands mass are cold in winter and moist air “bumping” into that cold gives more snow.
It will be less, eventually but not for a few decades yet.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT4%20MAAT%20BAR%20NH%20NormalisedFor1979-2008.gif
The DMI Greenland and Arctic pages several times a week. Greenland has been very interesting this year. But the temperature north of 80’N has been much closer to “normal” than the last few years. Winter closer to the average than previously, it’s been warmer for the last few years, whereas summer 2021 has been below average so far.
[ignore wrong chart]
It was reported that Iceland’s 4 largest glaciers stopped shrinking in 2019 for the first time in 25 or so years, while Hofsjōkull grew slightly, and Mýrdalsjōkull had significant growth. I had hoped for an update by now on their 2020 status, but it’s been awfully quiet. So it makes me wonder if this is a case of that law of climate science that regulates update fervency as an inverse function of glacial gain?
It’s just the beginning of the New Quiet Dark Ages.
NOAA SST-NorthAtlantic GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979 With37monthRunningAverage.gif (880×481) (wp.com)
This has been a very peculiar summer this far for Greenland:
http://polarportal.dk/fileadmin/polarportal/surface/SMB_curves_LA_EN_20210713.png
Yesterday was the <i>first</i> day with a normal melt.
Another fun fact. The summer weather in the US this year with hot and dry in the West but cold east of the Rockies is disturbingly similar to the weather at the end of the “Little Ice Age” around 1850:
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/mwre/98/4/1520-0493_1970_098_0259_tcotmc_2_3_co_2.xml?tab_body=pdf
Yes, there’s an increase in precipitation (snow) – what you’d expect from a warming planet with more moisture in the atmosphere.
Is the ice cap recovering? Is it now a return to ‘normal’? Heading towards an ice age?
Absolutely not! Greenland is still losing mass…
and this year the arctic sea ice isn’t doing any better: at second lowest extent for date.
“second lowest extent for date.”
Griff, how long is your record?
Is ‘record’ a euphemism for something else?
“Is ‘record’ a euphemism for something else?”
No, I’m asking Griff a direct question. Griff is constantly citing this or that as the highest temperature or lowest ice extent on record or, as in today’s post, “extent to date”. I’m simply asking for the time period being cited.
” Griff, how long is your record? ”
I don’t agree with lots of what griff tells here, but this time I do.
Here is, for the Arctic sea ice extent, a yearly superposition of longer periods’ averages and recent single years
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10qA6klNnFn_bo1DNOQZrPPa0fzWSvRYG/view
I collected out of
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadisst/data/download.html
HadISST ice data shows lower loss than e.g.
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/north/monthly/data/
My HadISST graph isn’t quite up to date, it’s a bit tedious to download the new data, to process it and to enter the results in a tool presenting the stuff in graphic form.
Maybe you do the job for us this time, David Kamakaris?
J.-P. D.
I wonder how much sea ice was present during the mid-Holocene when trees were flourishing where today, in spite of the increasing temperature since the LIA, it is still cold enough for permafrost to persist.
Meant to say Arctic ice, not just sea ice.
Maybe you think a bit about how much people lived in mid-Holocene, instead of posting such irrelevant things?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population#Ancient_and_post-classical_history
J.-P. D.
Whenever alarmists find themselves losing on the facts, they desperately drag in whatever irrelevancy they can think of.
I noticed that too, Mark. The link Bonbon posted discusses global population. Certainly a concern but has nothing to do with Arctic ice extent and the inconvenient fact that it has been much warmer in the past.
Stein et al. 2017, constructed a cross-section of PIP25 curves across the Arctic from the Fram Strait to the Chukchi Sea.
All four core locations currently reflect seasonal ice cover/ice edge situations (PIP25 index 0.5-0.7), with the Fram Strait being an ice edge situation and the other three reflecting seasonal ice cover.
Two key takeaways:
1. Maximum Holocene sea ice extent occurred within the past 500-1,000 years at every location.
2. The current sea ice extent is higher at all of the locations than over 50% to 85% of the Holocene.
While this doesn’t tell us what the sea ice extent was in million km2, it does tell us that the modern sea ice extent is larger than it was over most of the Holocene Epoch. It also tells us that the areas of currently seasonal sea ice extent have been seasonal or reduced over most of the past 5,000 years and ice-free or nearly ice-free over the prior 3,000 years or so.
“I wonder how much sea ice was present during the mid-Holocene when trees were flourishing where today”
Quite a few I would expect, as that was when the Earth’s orbital eccentricily gave a TSI of 10’s of W/m greater than now over high latitude land-mass, which absorb and quickly warm the atmosphere above.
In other words an irrelevant red herring in today’s climate when that factor does not apply.
Orbital eccentricities do not even begin to explain all the changes the Earth has seen during the Holocene. Roman and Medieval optima were also warmer than modern temperatures. Doubtful orbital eccentricity were responsible for these periods as well as the cooling episodes in between.
Irrelevant? Certainly not. More like inconvenient for the CAGW cabal.
They do:
And just what do you think would happen in the Arctic summer now if there were an extra 40 W/m2 of TSI available over northern land masses in June?
To say it would not give greater warming there is just plain bizarre.
And give me evidence that the Roman and Medieval warm periods impacted the rest of the globe at the same time please.
Rather than were regional to Europe due to a warmer Atlantic.
This what the IPCC says out the MWP:
“Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal periods during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950 to 1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the mid-20th century and in others as warm as in the late 20th century. With high confidence, these regional warm periods were not as synchronous across regions as the warming since the mid-20th century. Based on the comparison between reconstructions and simulations, there is high confidence that not only external orbital, solar and volcanic forcing, but also internal variability, contributed substantially to the spatial pattern and timing of surface temperature changes between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age (1450 to 1850).”
No matter what happens, griff will find a way to blame it on CO2.
Undoubtedly, CO2 caused the lightning strike that destroyed the George Floyd mural.
Article says:
“Snowfall and rain (minus runoff) added mass to the ice sheet.”
Grifter says:
“Greenland is still losing mass…”
Cronic depressive about everything.
So Griff what about that senior climate scientist Viner’s prediction that “children just won’t know what snow is”?
…..for fun and profit
If the whole planet is warming why is Antarctic sea ice growing? Overall growth trend of ~1% per decade since 1979.
ANTARCTIC SEA ICE EXTENT LARGEST SINCE 2015, AND GROWINGhttps://electroverse.net/antarctic-sea-ice-extent-largest-since-2015-and-growing/
“If the whole planet is warming why is Antarctic sea ice growing? Overall growth trend of ~1% per decade since 1979.”
Because of trends in atmospheric circulation.
+ It doesn’t help having an O3 hole above it (a GHG)
BTW: This is a more informative graph
Why does your graph not show the massive low in Astral Spring 2016?
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2017GL074691
“The 2016 austral spring was characterized by the lowest Southern Hemisphere (SH) sea ice extent seen in the satellite record (1979 to present) and coincided with anomalously warm surface waters surrounding most of Antarctica. We show that two distinct processes contributed to this event: First, the extreme El Niño event peaking in December–February 2015/2016 contributed to pronounced extratropical SH sea surface temperature and sea ice extent anomalies in the eastern Ross, Amundsen, and Bellingshausen Seas that persisted in part until the following 2016 austral spring. Second, internal unforced atmospheric variability of the Southern Annular Mode promoted the exceptional low sea ice extent in November–December 2016. These results suggest that a combination of tropically forced and internal SH atmospheric variability contributed to the unprecedented sea ice decline during the 2016 austral spring, on top of a background of slow changes expected from greenhouse gas and ozone forcing.
I know it’s just one season – but it serves to show that the Antarctic is VERY different to the Arctic, and it’s not temperature only that drives the extent.
I assume the graph you’re referring to is Figure 1 in your link, which shows sea ice extents. The graph I posted is sea ice extent anomalies, but you can still see the sharp 2016 drop in it.
griff
You’re wearing me out today. Soros is getting his money’s worth if he pays you by the hour and all he cares about is the number of moronic comments you make.
I don’t recall that you “expected” to see more snowfall. You’re always banging on about global warming causing drought. Apparently in your “mind” you can have it both ways. I guess it’s a dry snow.
Of course it’s neither due to a warming climate nor a cooling climate. It’s just a weather pattern.
In which time period would you prefer to live your life?
[__] Benign low CO2 1675-1750
[__] Dangerous CO2 1950-2025
Of course. When melting, it was normal for climate change. When gaining, it is normal for climate change1 An hypothesis that explains everything, explains nothing.
Great, burn it all down! Make it all melt! The world has been far too dry during this last 30-40 million years since temperatures dropped from Earth’s normal range and Antarctica froze over. Nothing better for all life on Earth than things warming up and the poles melting and releasing all that precious water. Rich coastal dwellers better learn how to swim or make house boats.
”Absolutely not! Greenland is still losing mass…”
And that’s bad because……..?
Tim Flim Flam Flannery wrote a book called “The Weather Makers”. Apparently, man has been inadvertently causing the weather to change ever since he left the jungle and began to farm, thus releasing “dangerous” CO2 into the atmosphere. The Climatastrophists, being more “reasonable” don’t go back that far, claiming that we began destroying climate only when the Industrial Revolution began, which, according to them was around 1860. Of course, at that point, the Industrial Revolution was already about a century old, but Climatastrophists are never ones to let facts get in the way of ideology. Anyway, they really believe this, despite how ridiculous it is. But they came up with “climate change” as a dodge. But they don’t mean the kind of climate change which caused the MWP (which they deny existed). They mean man-caused planet-destroying climate change, which causes everything known to man to happen, or not to happen, depending on which is more convenient. Such clever people those Climatastrophists are.
But they don’t mean the kind of climate change which caused the MWP (which they deny existed).
This what the IPCC say:
“Continental-scale surface temperature reconstructions show, with high confidence, multi-decadal periods during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (950 to 1250) that were in some regions as warm as in the mid-20th century and in others as warm as in the late 20th century. With high confidence, these regional warm periods were not as synchronous across regions as the warming since the mid-20th century. Based on the comparison between reconstructions and simulations, there is high confidence that not only external orbital, solar and volcanic forcing, but also internal variability, contributed substantially to the spatial pattern and timing of surface temperature changes between the Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age (1450 to 1850).”
“(melt) over 2.49 million square kilometers (961,000 square miles), 1.5 times below the 1981 to 2010 average of 3.72 million square kilometers”
A good report, but an awkward freshman metric for comparison. Better to say melt area was only ⅔ of the 1981-2010 avg. Either he entered the figs on his calculator the wrong way or he wanted to obfuscate the unwelcome result. Maybe they are forbidden to use the word only unless it’s to report hype climate change stuff.
‘Specialists’ at NSIDC have been famously predicting rapid decline in Arctic ice for a couple of decades.
Cold air excursions from Greenland have kept northwest Europe’s summer quite cool so far.
“Melt anomaly” — oh my, another way to amplify noise.
What’s also of interest is that over the last 30 days much of northern most Russia has been having well below average temps as Polar air floods down over it. This cooling looks to be linked to the increase in jet stream activity over the mid Indian Ocean. As this seems to put a zonal limit on the jet stream over Asia.
Which limits warmer air pushing from the south of the zonal stream, while north of this zonal jet stream messy jet stream activity allows plenty of Polar air to flood down from the Arctic. Should this patterning last into the Autumn then l would expect a early start to the snow cover extent over Russia this year.
It should also be noted that according to DMI the Arctic summer temperature has been running below the 30 year mean all season.
In summary, what is happening in the Arctic circle is exactly opposite of what the climate models, many politicians, and so called experts projected! PERIOD!
Natural variability trumps the all mighty CO2!
“The first is a low probability event that was aggravated by climate change. This is what I suggested in my blog–and I am not the only one who believes that the best science supports this hypothesis.”
I agree with that:
“To put it succinctly, they have no evidence that global warming played a major role in the event.”
I think it did in the sense of adding couple of C to the extremes – being supercharged by the overriding AGW signal – but I do not rule out a more major circulation role. How did tropical air that warm arrive above the Rockies in order to be drawn down (Isentropic drawn-down).
Did something outside of past decades occur at the source origin of that air?
IMHO: The Media would be unable to differentiate between the two possible events you outline – and it is entirely correct that experts question the models.
Tell me Cliff:
What was the Pot Temp at 700mb for this event.
Was it anomalous?
There must be charts available that give extremes for June.
If it was anomalous then it is reasonable to ask why.
I say it must have been else there was an even more anomalous rising Pot T with height aloft of that.
Keep in mind if you have 0C air at the 500 mb level, warming of 3C/1K coming down will give you 54C at sea level. It doesn’t have to be exceptionally warm air at altitude to cause exceptional heat at the surface. Also there was a heating on June 17, 1859 like this in Santa Barbara California. It went from 75F to 133F in a matter of hours.
I do know that:
the point is was it anomalous with a previous recorded extreme.
Then we have to investigate why.
Status quo
From same people very interesting study: https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2021-131/essd-2021-131.pdf
Figure 4 is telling. Despite the ebb and flow of snow/ice on daily, monthly, or even yearly time scales the trend is decisively down. The mass balance is now at -6000 Gt.