Greenland Mass Trends From Airborne and Satellite Altimetry During 2011–2020

• Main Authors: Khan, Shfaqat A, Bamber, Jonathan L, Rignot, Eric, Helm, Veit, Aschwanden, Andy, Holland, David M, Broeke, Michiel, King, Michalea, Noël, Brice, Truffer, Martin, Humbert, Angelika, Colgan, William, Vijay, Saurabh, Munneke, Peter Kuipers
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 2022
• Subjects: Earth Sciences; Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience; Climate Action; Greenland Ice Sheet; satellite altimetry; mass loss; ice dynamics; vertical land motion; surface mass balance; Environmental sciences; Greenland; Ice Sheet; Jakobshavn; Jakobshavn isbræ
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/366232bs

We use satellite and airborne altimetry to estimate annual mass changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet. We estimate ice loss corresponding to a sea-level rise of 6.9±0.4mm from April 2011 to April 2020, with a highest annual ice loss rate of 1.4mm/yr sea-level equivalent from April 2019 to April 2020. On a regional scale, our annual mass loss timeseries reveals 10-15m/yr dynamic thickening at the terminus of Jakobshavn Isbræ from April 2016 to April 2018, followed by a return to dynamic thinning. We observe contrasting patterns of mass loss acceleration in different basins across the ice sheet and suggest that these spatiotemporal trends could be useful for calibrating and validating prognostic ice sheet models. In addition to resolving the spatial and temporal fingerprint of Greenland's recent ice loss, these mass loss grids are key for partitioning contemporary elastic vertical land motion from longer-term glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) trends at GPS stations around the ice sheet. Our ice-loss product results in a significantly different GIA interpretation from a previous ice-loss product.