Picture of the month - June
Annual balance of terrestrial water storage and ice mass loss in 2024
The GRACE/GRACE-FO satellites have been monitoring continuously terrestrial water storage since 2002. A world map was calculated for the year 2024, showing the annual balance of terrestrial water storage compared to the long-term average from 2002 to 2024. Water storage is not shown in absolute millimetres, as is usually the case, but as a categorization.
This consists of five classes, which are assigned to a color scale:
- Dark red: “far below average dry" (2024 was as dry as 0–10% of the other years)
- Orange: “below average dry" (2024 was as dry as 10–25% of the other years)
- Grey: “normal” (2024 corresponded to the average)
- Blue: “above average moisture” (2024 was wetter than 75–90% of the other years)
- Dark blue: “far above average moisture” (2024 was wetter than at least 90% of the other years)
The presentation in categories makes regions that are far above or below the average values clearly visible. It should be emphasized that the year 2024 was comparatively wet for large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. West Asia – including the Himalayan region – and the Pacific coast of North America, on the other hand, experienced a very dry year. In Europe, the water reservoir recovered after a dry phase (2018–2022), resulting in an average value for 2024.
Classification of ice mass loss
The strong ice mass trends in the glaciated regions of Greenland and Antarctica (maps on the right) can be classified in a similar way to terrestrial water storage. For this purpose, the annual ice mass loss in 2024 is compared with all annual ice mass losses. Thus, a grid point labeled “much below” lost less ice mass in 2024 than in only 10 % of all other years. It is important to note that this does not imply an ice mass gain, but only that the loss was comparably minor! Conversely, a region labeled “much above” lost more ice mass in 2024 than in 90 % of all other years.
Overall, the ice mass loss of 2024 in Antarctica was close to average, with some regions losing more and some regions losing less than average ice mass. The west coast of Greenland experienced a comparatively minor ice mass loss in 2024, while central parts of the Greenland ice sheet lost much above average ice mass.
Text and maps: Eva Boergens, GFZ
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