Annual Accumulated Melt over Greenland 1979 through 2007
The ice sheet melt extent is a daily (or every-other-day, prior to August, 1987) estimate of the spatial extent of wet snow on the Greenland ice sheet derived from passive microwave satellite brightness temperature characteristics. This indicator of melt on each area of the ice sheet for each day of observation is physically based on the changes in microwave emission characteristics observable in data. Although it is not a direct measure of the snow wetness, it is representative of the amount of ice loss due to seasonal melting that occurs on the Greenland ice sheet.
This animation shows the regions of the Greenland ice sheet over which melt occurred more than three days between May 1st and September 30th for each year.
This animation shows the change in annual melt over Greenland from 1979 through 2007.
Melt during 1979
Melt during 1980
Melt during 1981
Melt during 1982
Melt during 1983
Melt during 1984
Melt during 1985
Melt during 1986
Melt during 1987
Melt during 1988
Melt during 1989
Melt during 1990
Melt during 1991
Melt during 1992
Melt during 1993
Melt during 1994
Melt during 1995
Melt during 1996
Melt during 1997
Melt during 1998
Melt during 1999
Melt during 2000
Melt during 2001
Melt during 2002
Melt during 2003
Melt during 2004
Melt during 2005
Melt during 2006
Melt during 2007
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio
The Next Generation Blue Marble data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC).
-
Visualizer
- Cindy Starr (Global Science and Technology, Inc.)
-
Scientist
- Waleed Abdalati (NASA/GSFC)
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, November 6, 2007.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:55 PM EDT.
Datasets used
-
[DMSP: SSM/I]
ID: 11Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Special Sensor Microwave Imager
See all pages that use this dataset -
[Nimbus-7: SMMR]
ID: 78 -
Greenland Ice Sheet Melt Characteristics
ID: 594This dataset can be found at: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0218.html
See all pages that use this dataset
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.