by Cap Allon
October 13, 2020

from Electroverse Website

 

 

 

 

 

 


According to the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) - who know a thing or two about Greenland - the world's largest island is currently gaining snow and ice at a level never before seen in mid-October.

Using the daily output from a weather forecasting model combined with a model that calculates melt of snow and ice, the DMI calculate the "surface mass budget" (SMB) of the ice sheet.

This budget takes into account,

the balance between snow that is added to the ice sheet and melting snow and glacier ice that runs off into the ocean totaled over the course of a year (from September 1 to August 31).

The ice sheet also loses ice by the breaking off, or "calving" of icebergs from its edge, but that is not included in this type of budget.

 

Calving events usually occur when an ice sheet is expanding, not shrinking; furthermore, icebergs breaking off a glacier aren't necessarily "lost" to the ocean, they continue existing, like some island extension of the sheet.

SMB charts reveal the growth trend witnessed over the past few years has continued into 2020, with multiple bouts of all-time record gains documented throughout the year.

Latest charts reveal the astonishing SMB growth has continued into October, too:

record daily gains were registered on both October 11 and 12, with the sheet gaining a whopping 11Gts (gigatonne) of snow and ice over the two days - gains never before seen at this time of year in data going back to 1981:

 


 SMB gains (Gt/day) Greenland

[polarportal.dk]



The conditions have nudged this year above the 1981-2010 mean:
 

 


 Acc. SMB (Gt) Greenland

[polarportal.dk]



And the gains add to the impressive growth trend witnessed since 2016:
 

2016-17

For the 2016-17 SMB year, the Greenland ice sheet gained 544 billion tonnes of ice (compared to the 1981-2010 average of 368bn tonnes).

The season was the fifth highest in books dating back to 1981 (with the highest being the 619bn tonnes gained in 1995-96: solar minimum of cycle 22).

Even taking into account calving, the year still wound-up with a positive Total Mass Budget (TMB).
 

 

Daily (upper chart) and cumulative (lower)

surface mass budget of the Greenland ice sheet,

in billion tonnes per day, and billion tonnes, respectively.

Blue lines show 2016-17 SMB year.

The grey lines show the 1981-2010 average,

and the red line in lower chart shows the

record low SMB year of 2011-12

[DMI Polar Portal]
 

 


2017-18

For this year, the DMI calculated a total SMB of 517bn tonnes, which is almost 150bn tonnes above the average for 1981-2010, ranking just behind the 2016-17 season as sixth highest on record (by contrast, the lowest SMB in the record was 2011-2012 with just 38bn tonnes).
 

 


 Daily (upper chart) and cumulative (lower)

surface mass budget of the Greenland ice sheet,

in billion tonnes per day, and billion tonnes, respectively

[DMI Polar Portal].
 

 


 2018-19 and 2019-20

DMI estimates that the surface of the ice sheet gained 169bn tonnes during 2018-19.

 

Certainly on the low end, but still within the 1981-2010 average and comfortably above 2011-12's paltry 38bn tonnes.

The 2019-20 SMB, having recently ended (Aug 31), has reversed the relatively low gains of 2018-19 with 349bn tonnes added to the ice sheet, levels very close to the 1981-2010 average of 368bn tonnes.

 

The DMI described the year as "normal", and the gains look to have gotten things back on track to the post 2012 trend of growth.
 

 


2020-21

We're barely six weeks into the 2020-21 season but as touched on above, the SMB has started in record-fashion.

 

Looking ahead to Aug 31, 2021, gains north of 500bn tonnes - as occurred in 2016-17 and 2017-18 - are certainly a realistic possibility.


The period 2003-2011 saw ice sheet losses on Greenland average 234bn tonnes each year.

 

Since then though, the tide has clearly started turning, the trend is changing:

climate is cyclic, after all - never linear.

The COLD TIMES are returning in line with,

Both NOAA and NASA appear to agree, if you read between the lines, with their forecast for this upcoming solar cycle 25 seeing it as "the weakest of the past 200 years," with the agency correlating previous solar shutdowns to prolonged periods of global cooling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prepare accordingly - learn the facts, relocate if need be, and grow your own...