Sunday, 6 January 2019

Greenland ice sheet


Germany declares state of emergency over snow storms

Second-highest avalanche warning level in force across German Alps after seven people died during weekend of heavy snow.
by


Greenland ice sheet
This is the average temp for the Greenland ice sheet
The data is from

Snip;
As noted in the previous post, exceptional winter snow accumulation and heavy, summer snowfall, drove the net snow input mass to 130 billion tons above the 1981 to 2010 average. This was followed by a near-average melt and runoff period, resulting in a large net mass gain for the ice sheet in 2018 of 150 billion tons. This is the largest net gain from snowfall since 1996, and the highest snowfall since 1972. However, several major glaciers now flow significantly faster than in these earlier years. The net change in mass of the ice sheet overall, including this higher discharge of ice directly into the ocean, is not clear at this point but may be a smaller loss or even a small gain. This is similar to our assessment for 2017, and in sharp contrast to the conditions for the preceding decade.
Persistent winds from the northeast triggered high snowfall for 2017 to 2018 along the eastern Greenland coast. These winds blew across open ocean areas allowing the atmosphere to entrain moisture and deposit it as heavy snowfall on the ice sheet.


 

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