Trend Change? Greenland Ice Mass Loss Has Been Decelerating Since 2012

by P. Gosselin, Sep 24, 2022 in NoTricksZone


We have digitized the Polar Portal’s graph of the accumulated surface mass balance and have come up with a value of 467 Gt. That’s 100 Gt or 27% above the 1981…2010 mean! Together with the melting of icebergs (assuming the value of the previous year, which was already 10% more than that of 2020 ) this results in approximately the representation below, which was included in the publication until the report 2020.

In 2021, one has probably omitted for reasons, perhaps the jump was difficult to explain by the calving of icebergs?

The total mass balance is very likely -100 Gt. An “accelerated” thawing of the Greenland ice sheet is not to be recognized. If one accumulates the mass loss, one sees the “braking” very nicely. Acceleration occurred until 2012.