A year of Greenland's surface melting and freezing

A new study uses high-resolution satellite data and remote weather stations to estimate the daily freezing and thawing of Greenland Ice Sheet. The researchers found that the Greenland Ice Sheet melted extensively in summer with a peak that occurred on 11 July 2012 when 22.42 billion metric tons of meltwater was produced by unusually warm weather. The measurement of the annual meltwater volume from the satellite is very close to that from regional climate models, with an annual mean of ∼700 billion metric tons. The satellite-based approach provides an alternative way to estimate Greenland Ice Sheet daily melt flux.

Greenland Ice Sheet Daily Surface Melt Flux Observed From Space,
Lei Zheng, Xiao Cheng, Xinyi Shang, Zhuoqi Chen, Qi Liang, Kang Wang [2022] Geophysical Research Letters

DOI: 10.1029/2021GL096690