Early 2013 Melt in SE Greenland?

[Jim Hunt]

Researching my latest blog post about the GIS:

http://econnexus.org/abrupt-climate-change-in-the-arctic-why-should-we-care/

I came across the following piece of evidence. Even more melting on Friday!

[Sigmetnow]

A NASA rover prototype is set to explore the Greenland Ice Sheet May 3 through June 8!

The autonomous, solar-powered robot carries a ground-penetrating radar to study how snow accumulates.

The link has a video that explains how the robot may be slower than humans operating from snowmobiles -- but it can operate for more of the day, and in harsh conditions, where humans can be limited.

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/grover.html


Its name?  What else but:  GROVER.

[Sigmetnow]

Great pic.  Cmdr. Chris Hadfield tweeted, “Looking north from our orbit to the forbidding rock and ice of Greenland” from the International Space Station.

pic.twitter.com/v4zoygpQgI

[Espen]

Sigmetnow;

Rigth in front of you, you sees Lindenow Fjord and Nørrearm where you will find Apostlens Tommelfinger.

Unforthunately is Kap Farvel just cut away in the left corner (down), the southernmost point of Greenland:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography_of_Greenland

[ChrisReynolds]

Sigmentnow,

Thanks for the information re GROVER. Excellent idea, such missions on Greenland and Antarctica could help develop better automation software for extra-terrestrial missions.

[Apocalypse4Real]

It seems Greenland's coasts, at least, are almost all above freezing this afternoon. The U Koln temperature images for June 3 2013 1800 follow.

It will be interesting to see how much melt appears tomorrow in the NSIDC images for today.

A4R

[crandles]

By this time last year Greenland had had a week with 25% of surface melt whereas this year has only had a couple of days noticeably above 1981-2010 average.





The end of the snow drought must have come at an ideal time to save the start of the season being too severe. In 2012 you could see melt ponds near Disco Bay by now.

Weather rescuing the season or will climate take over sometime soon?

[sidd]

I am looking for the melt on the saddle at 67N, for evidence of the Gregoire(2012)

doi:10.1038/nature11257

saddle collapse feedback. Equilibrium line altitude (ELA) soared above the saddle last year, and it is lowering into ablation zone. We shall see.

sidd

[Frivolousz21]

By this time last year Greenland had had a week with 25% of surface melt whereas this year has only had a couple of days noticeably above 1981-2010 average.



The end of the snow drought must have come at an ideal time to save the start of the season being too severe. In 2012 you could see melt ponds near Disco Bay by now.

Weather rescuing the season or will climate take over sometime soon?

It's taking over now.  All of the global's show big time warmth taking over the region.