West Greenland surface runoff extent, mapped from daily MODIS imagery 2000 to 2021

Streams and lakes develop each summer over the marginal regions of the Greenland ice sheet. These hydrological systems reach well into the accumulation area and indicate that surface runoff of meltwater is an important component of the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet. Here we map the slush limit, a proxy for the extent of surface runoff, using daily MODIS data (500 m spatial resolution) for the 22 melt seasons from 2000 to 2021. We develop an automated algorithm capable of detecting daily slush limits, provided sufficient image quality. The algorithm is applied to Greenland's west coast. Albeit MODIS' spatial resolution is too coarse to resolve streams, slush fields or lakes, the results highly agree to surface runoff mapping from better resolution satellite imagery. The data document the evolution of the slush limit across latitudes and during the individual melt seasons. We find significant increasing trends in slush limits until the year 2012, but not thereafter. We show that the slush limit typically rises quickly early in the melt season, but upward migration halts before melting ceases. The reasons behind this behaviour remain somewhat enigmatic. For the year 2012, we are able to demonstrate that upward migration of surface runoff stopped early in the melt season, at the upper margin of the ice slabs. These thick and continuous ice layers are located close to the surface, in the firn, and prevent percolation of melt into the otherwise porous firn. Had the ice slabs extended further into the accumulation area, the summer 2012 saw sufficient energy to raise the slush limit by another ~300 m in elevation.