Greenland snowline retreat and rainfall

In the summer of 2021, unusually warm atmospheric rivers swept along Greenland, bringing potent melt conditions when the melt season was drawing to a close. Although this heatwave was followed by never-before-seen rainfall, it was the heat that led to a major melt. Researchers found that this melt, for example, caused Greenland’s ice sheet near Kangerlussuaq to retreat by 788 metres, exposing a wide area of dark bare ice. The map is based on observations from the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission to show the snowline retreat between 11 August and 20 August 2021, and from GEUS’ PROMICE and GC-Net weather stations to show rainfall. 

Click here to see the zoom in indicated by the grey square over southwest Greenland.

Read full story: Historic Greenland ice sheet rainfall unravelled