Lake ice break-up in Greenland: timing and spatiotemporal variability

Abstract

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the Sentinel-1 (S1) mission with its high temporal and spatial resolution allows for an automated detection of lake ice break-up timings from surface backscatter differences across south (S), southwest (SW), and northwest (NW) Greenland (<71° N latitude) during the period 2017 to 2021. Median break-up dates of the 563 studied lakes range between 8 June and 10 July, with the earliest being in 2019 and the latest in 2018. There is a strong correlation between the break-up date and elevation, while a weak relationship with latitude and lake area could be observed. Lake-specific median break-up timings for 2017–2021 increase (i.e., are later) by 3 d per 100 m elevation gain. When assuming an earlier break-up timing of 8 d which corresponds to the observed median variability of ±8 d, the introduced excess energy due to a changing surface albedo from snow-covered ice surface to water translates to melting 0.4 ± 0.1 m thick ice at the melting point or heating up a water depth down to 35 ± 3 m by 1 K across the entire surface area of each respective lake. Upscaling the results to 100 486 lakes across the S, SW, and NW regions, which correspond to 64.5 % of all lakes or 62.1 % of the overall lake area in Greenland, yields an estimate of 1.8 × 106 TJ additional energy input. This translates to melting 5.8 Gt ice at the melting point or warming 432.3 Gt water by 1 K.