Above normal accumulation rates in Eastern Greenland

The snow cover on Freya Glacier is usually 2 Meters thick in late winter. Repeated heavy snowfall events in February 2018 accumulated a snowheight of least 3.7 meters and burried our weather station in snow.

This graph shows the current monitoring network on Freya Glacier, with the automatic camera and the weather station, and the time series of winter- and annual mass balances since the start of the measurements.

Snow height and snow/firn ablation at the weather station on Freya Glacier. During the winter 2015/16 and 2016/17 typical winter snow heights are slightly above 2 meters, but in winter 2017/18 the snowheight on the site was approx. 4 meters.

This map shows the distribution of the accumulation anomaly in winter 2017/18 over Greenland. Source: Polarportal.dk.

Freya Glacier lies on the northern East coast in an area of high positve accumulation anomalies. This will significantly influence the annual mass balance of Freya Glacier in 2017/18, which will most likely be positive.

Here the Press Release in German and with more details the ZAMG Website.