GREENLAND ICE SHEET SIXTH HIGHEST ON RECORD

by GWPF, December 7, 2019


In 2018, Greenland’s total  surface mass budget (SMB) is almost 150bn tonnes above the average for 1981-2010, ranking as sixth highest on record.

 

The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) also performs daily simulations of how much ice or water the Ice Sheet loses or accumulates. Based on these simulations, an overall assessment of how the surface mass balance develops across the entire Ice Sheet is obtained (Fig. 4).

At the end of the 2018 season (31 August 2018), the net surface mass balance was 517 Gt, which means that 517 Gt more snow fell than the quantity of snow and ice that melted and ran out into the sea.