Early Greenland Melt Spike Possible as Forecast Calls for Temperatures of up to 50 F Above Average
1
May, 2017
Greenland
— a region vulnerable to the slings and arrows of human-forced
climate change — appears set to experience both considerable
warming and a significant melt spike this week.
Starting
on Wednesday, May 3, a sprawling dome of high pressure is expected to
begin to extend westward from the far North Atlantic and out over
Iceland. As the high pressure dome builds to 1040 mb over the next
couple of days, its clockwise flow will thrust abnormally warm and
moist air northward out of the Atlantic. This air-mass is expected
first to over-ride eastern Greenland, then run up into Baffin Bay,
finally encompassing most of the island and its vast, receding
glaciers.
(May
5, 2017 GFS model run as shown by Earth Nullschool is predicted to
produce widespread above-freezing temperatures over the surface of
the Greenland Ice Sheet. Such warming is expected to be accompanied
by rainfall over a number of glaciers. Image source:Earth
Nullschool.)
Liquid
precipitation is then expected to start falling over southern
sections of the Greenland Ice Sheet as
temperatures rise to 1-6 C (33 to 43 F) or warmer. Since water
contains more latent heat energy than air, such rainfall is likely to
produce more melt than would otherwise be caused by a simple
temperature rise.
For
those of us living in more southerly climes, a temperature of 6 C (43
F) may not sound very warm. But for the northeastern region of
Greenland shared by the Zachariae, Brittania,
Freja, and Violin Glaciers, such temperatures far exceed ordinary
expectations for early May. They are anything but normal. In fact,
the building influx of heat is more reminiscent to readings Greenland
would have tended to experience during summer — if at all — under
past climate averages.
(GFS
model predictions for May 4 show widespread liquid precipitation
falling over southern Greenland. Image source: Climate
Reanalyzer.)
Unfortunately,
the new climate presented by human-forced warming is now capable of
producing some rather extraordinary temperature extremes. And the
anomaly ranges that are predicted for the coming week are nothing
short of outlandish.
According
to climate reanalysis data, by May 5th, temperatures over northern
and eastern Greenland are expected to range between 15 C above
average over a wide region and
between 20 and 28 C above average in the northeast. For
the Fahrenheit-minded, that’s 27 to 50 degrees F above normal. Or
the equivalent of a 102 F to 125 F May day high in Gaithersburg, MD.
(An
amazing temperature spike is expected to ride up and over Greenland
on May 3 to May 5. This warming is expected to produce very extreme
above average temperatures for this time of year. Image
source: Global
and Regional Climate Anomalies.)
Overall
excessions for Greenland temperature are also predicted to be quite
extraordinary for the day — hitting nearly 9 degrees Celsius (16 F)
above average for the whole of this large island. So much warmth
extending so far inland and combining with liquid precipitation, if
it emerges as predicted in these GFS climate models, is likely to
produce a significant early season melt spike — especially over
southern and eastern Greenland. In places, these temperatures exceed
expected normal summer conditions for Greenland’s glaciers. So it
is difficult to imagine a situation where a significant surface melt
spike does not occur if these predicted temperatures emerge.
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