Assessing spatiotemporal variability in melt–refreeze patterns in firn over Greenland with CryoSat-2

Li, Weiran; Lhermitte, Stef; Wouters, Bert; Slobbe, Cornelis; Brils, Max; Fettweis, Xavier

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3419-2025

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3419-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3419-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 9

Research article

|

01 Sep 2025

Research article |

| 01 Sep 2025

Assessing spatiotemporal variability in melt–refreeze patterns in firn over Greenland with CryoSat-2

Weiran Li, Stef Lhermitte, Bert Wouters, Cornelis Slobbe, Max Brils, and Xavier Fettweis

Data sets

MARv3.14 outputs forced by {ERA5} including the realtime 2024--2025 estimate X. Fettweis http://ftp.climato.be/fettweis/MARv3.14/Greenland/

ATLAS/ICESat-2 L3A Land Ice Height, Version 6 B. Smith et al. https://doi.org/10.5067/ATLAS/ATL06.006

Data for "Observing the near-surface properties of the Greenland Ice sheet'' K. M. Scanlan et al. https://doi.org/10.11583/DTU.21333291.V1

Short summary

Due to recurrent melt and refreezing events in recent decades, the snow conditions over Greenland have changed. To observe this, we use a parameter (leading edge width; LeW) derived from satellite altimetry and analyse its spatial and temporal variations. By comparing the LeW variations with modelled firn parameters, we concluded that the 2012 melt event and the recent and increasingly frequent melt events have a long-lasting impact on the volume scattering of Greenland firn.