'2021 is the 25th year in a row in which Greenland's ice sheet lost more mass during the course of the melting season than it gained during the winter.'
Jessica Corbett"2021 is the 25th year in a row in which Greenland's ice sheet lost more mass during the course of the melting season than it gained during the winter."
The report explains that while"the early part of the summer was cold and wet with unusually heavy and late snowfall in June, which delayed the onset of the melting season," July saw a heatwave that"led to a considerable loss of ice." The ice sheet ended this season with a net surface mass balance of about 396 billion tonnes. Although that"makes the current season the 28th lowest in the 41-year time series," or a"somewhat average year," the report highlights"how our perspective changes in line with climate change," explaining that in the late 1990s,"the same figure would have been regarded as a year with a very low surface mass balance in the climate picture at that time.
Last year was also"notable," the report says, because"precipitation at Summit Station, which is located at the 'top' of the ice sheet at an altitude of 3,200 meters above sea level, was registered in the form of rain."that"there is no previous report of rainfall at this location , which reaches 3,216 meters in elevation."