Fettweis, X., Tedesco, M., Broeke, M. van den, Ettema, J.

The Cryosphere

Published date May 5, 2011

Melting trends over the Greenland ice sheet (1958–2009) from spaceborne microwave data and regional climate models

  • Stuides near-surface melt changes over the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) since 1979
  • Compares melt extent estimates from two regional climate models with those obtained from spaceborne microwave brightness temperatures using two different remote sensing algorithms
  • Finds that results from the two models were consistent with those obtained with the remote sensing algorithms at both daily and yearly time scales
  • Results from models and spaceborne microwave sensors confirm a significant (p-value = 0.01) increase in GrIS surface melting since 1979
  • Results indicate the melt extent recorded over the last years (1998, 2003, 2005 and 2007) is unprecedented in the last 50 yr with the cumulated melt area in the 2000's being, on the average, twice that of the 1980's