We may still have several weeks of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but the extended shoulder season warming that led to significant melt spikes and temperature anomalies in Greenland last year is already returning–and early.

Longer shoulder seasons in which unseasonable temperatures and melt events can occur are hallmarks of the worsening climate crisis. Although current temperature anomalies are most extreme over the Greenland ice sheet, the entire Arctic is currently 3.74°C warmer than the 1979–2000 average.

Authors of a recent article in Nature (Hörhold et al 2023) recently confirmed through ice cores that temperatures in central-north Greenland are greater than at any point in the last millennium.

What does this mean for the summer melt season? We’ll be tracking how this season develops at arcticrisk.org/alerts/

Image: Karsten Haustein, karstenhaustein.com