Record high melt in Greenland high places in 2007
(Credit: Stig Nygaard. Some rights reserved.)
The high places of icy Greenland set a new record in 2007 for snow melt. Marco Tedesco is a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said that at altitudes above 2,000 meters in Greenland – a little over a mile high – snow melted for up to 30 days longer than the 20-year average.
Marco Tedesco: This is about 150 percent greater than the previous average.
Data from satellites indicated surface temperatures over the Greenland ice sheet were up to four to six degrees Celsius above average in 2007. And as Greenland melts, sea level continues to rise.
Marco Tedesco: When the snow melts, you have two major factors. The first thing, melting snow produces liquid water that can directly flow, at low elevation, into the sea, and so contributing directly to sea-level rise, or it can percolate through the ice sheet, eventually lubricating the ice-bedrock interface and accelerating the speed of glaciers flowing into the sea.
What’s more, as fresh, brighter snow melts away, older, darker snow lies exposed, absorbing more sunlight and getting even warmer.
Marco Tedesco: The most important thing is that we need to continue monitoring not only the Greenland ice sheet, but the whole Arctic.
Tedesco said the melting over the whole Greenland ice sheet was about 20 percent greater in 2007 than the average for the baseline period.
Our thanks today to NASA, in celebration of the International Polar Year.
Marco Tedesco on 2007 ice melt record in Greenland
Listen to the 5-minute Clear Voices podcast.
NEW! Find related content with Sphere