Greenland's September Melt Spike Biggest Seen In 40 Years Of Records; 12 Billion Tons/Day

[hatrack]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=691

In Greenland, it’s feeling more like July than September. After a fairly cold and wet summer in Greenland, an unusually late heat wave last weekend caused extensive melting across the ice sheet — the kind of melt typically seen in the middle of summer. Researchers say it’s the largest melt event to occur in September, according to data sets spanning nearly four decades. “This event demonstrates how global warming does not only increase the intensity but also the length of the melting season,” Maurice van Tiggelen, a polar scientist from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said in an email.

The first day of September typically marks the end of the Greenland melt season, as the sun moves lower in the sky and temperatures usually cool. Yet over the weekend, temperatures began rising when a warm jet of air pushed northward across Baffin Bay and the western coast of Greenland. As a result, tens of billions of tons of ice were lost — an event that could further Greenland’s already significant contributions to rising sea levels.

EDIT

At peak melt Saturday, meltwater runoff rates clocked in as high as 12 billion tons per day — easily ranking as one of the top 10 largest runoff events on record, said climate scientist Xavier Fettweis.

Fettweis explained that meltwater runoff is important to track because it can reach the ocean and contribute to sea-level rise. A portion of the runoff can also be retained into the snowpack and refreeze during the winter. However, he said, this unusually late melting could favor the formation of ice slabs at the top of the snowpack. The ice slabs could prevent meltwater from percolating through the snowpack, meaning it could instead enter the ocean, further contributing to sea-level rise. “If such events will occur in the next summers (which is very likely), the sea-level contribution will [grow] larger,” Fettweis wrote in an email.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/06/greenland-ice-melt-heat-wave-summer/

[lapfog_1]

1. 12 billions tons is 2.875 trillion gallons

Lake Meade holds (at capacity) 9.3 trillion gallons...

so every 3.23 days Greenland could fill Lake Meade just from the melt water