Near real-time surface melt in Greenland
Greenland snow melt extent is detected using AMSR2 satellite passive microwave at 12.5 km resolution after Picard and Fily (2006). New observations are downloaded every day from NSIDC, which processes the data with a delay of about 3–4 days in general. The graphs have been updated on ????-??-?? but are valid for an earlier date as indicated in the graphs.
Caution: Near-real time processing is subject to various types of errors, data may be unavailable or corrupted and the algorithm to detect melt in real time is still experimental. These observations must be interpreted with care !
The raw data used to produce these maps and plots are to be available from this page "soon". Meanwhile, they are available upon request.
The map shows where melt is detected (for the validity date), and the color indicates the melt conditions in the two previous days.
download last melt map as geotif
Number of melt days in the season
The map shows the number of melt days in the current melt season (since 1 Jan) up to the validity date.download melt duration as geotif
Surface melt seasonal statistics
The current melt conditions are compared to past conditions, in the current year and in the the past years.Surface melt at PROMICE stations
The year-to-date number of melt days detected by satellite until the current day of the year in each season is shown for all PROMICE stations (sorted by elevation). Hovering the mouse on the bars show the year.Notes
- AMSR2 is operated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
- Picard, G., & Fily, M. (2006). Surface melting observations in Antarctica by microwave radiometers: Correcting 26-year time series from changes in acquisition hours. Remote Sensing of Environment, 104(3), 325–336, doi:10.1016/j.rse.2006.05.010.
- Fausto, R. S., van As, D., Mankoff, K. D., Vandecrux, B., Citterio, M., Ahlstrøm, A. P., Andersen, S. B., Colgan, W., Karlsson, N. B., Kjeldsen, K. K., Korsgaard, N. J., Larsen, S. H., Nielsen, S., Pedersen, A. Ø., Shields, C. L., Solgaard, A. M., and Box, J. E.: Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) automatic weather station data, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 3819–3845, 10.5194/essd-13-3819-2021, 2021.
- 2012 is known to have the widest melt extent (Nghiem et al 2012).