Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland.
The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influence...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org/ark:/13030/qt22k9s47z 2023-05-15T16:21:10+02:00 Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. Wood, Michael Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian An, Lu Bjørk, Anders van den Broeke, Michiel Cai, Cilan Kane, Emily Menemenlis, Dimitris Millan, Romain Morlighem, Mathieu Mouginot, Jeremie Noël, Brice Scheuchl, Bernd Velicogna, Isabella Willis, Josh K Zhang, Hong eaba7282 2021-01-01 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22k9s47z unknown eScholarship, University of California qt22k9s47z https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22k9s47z public Science advances, vol 7, iss 1 article 2021 ftcdlib 2021-11-01T18:16:12Z The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retreated when warming increased undercutting by 48%. Conversely, 27 glaciers calving on shallow ridges and 24 in cold, shallow waters retreated little, contributing 15% of the loss, while 10 glaciers retreated substantially following the collapse of several ice shelves. The retreat mechanisms remain undiagnosed at 87 glaciers without ocean and bathymetry data, which controlled 19% of the loss. Ice sheet projections that exclude ocean-induced undercutting may underestimate mass loss by at least a factor of 2. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelves University of California: eScholarship Greenland |
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University of California: eScholarship |
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description |
The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retreated when warming increased undercutting by 48%. Conversely, 27 glaciers calving on shallow ridges and 24 in cold, shallow waters retreated little, contributing 15% of the loss, while 10 glaciers retreated substantially following the collapse of several ice shelves. The retreat mechanisms remain undiagnosed at 87 glaciers without ocean and bathymetry data, which controlled 19% of the loss. Ice sheet projections that exclude ocean-induced undercutting may underestimate mass loss by at least a factor of 2. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wood, Michael Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian An, Lu Bjørk, Anders van den Broeke, Michiel Cai, Cilan Kane, Emily Menemenlis, Dimitris Millan, Romain Morlighem, Mathieu Mouginot, Jeremie Noël, Brice Scheuchl, Bernd Velicogna, Isabella Willis, Josh K Zhang, Hong |
spellingShingle |
Wood, Michael Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian An, Lu Bjørk, Anders van den Broeke, Michiel Cai, Cilan Kane, Emily Menemenlis, Dimitris Millan, Romain Morlighem, Mathieu Mouginot, Jeremie Noël, Brice Scheuchl, Bernd Velicogna, Isabella Willis, Josh K Zhang, Hong Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
author_facet |
Wood, Michael Rignot, Eric Fenty, Ian An, Lu Bjørk, Anders van den Broeke, Michiel Cai, Cilan Kane, Emily Menemenlis, Dimitris Millan, Romain Morlighem, Mathieu Mouginot, Jeremie Noël, Brice Scheuchl, Bernd Velicogna, Isabella Willis, Josh K Zhang, Hong |
author_sort |
Wood, Michael |
title |
Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
title_short |
Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
title_full |
Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
title_fullStr |
Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland. |
title_sort |
ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in greenland. |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22k9s47z |
op_coverage |
eaba7282 |
geographic |
Greenland |
geographic_facet |
Greenland |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelves |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Ice Shelves |
op_source |
Science advances, vol 7, iss 1 |
op_relation |
qt22k9s47z https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22k9s47z |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1766009187131719680 |