Accelerating Ice Loss From Peripheral Glaciers in North Greenland

In recent decades, Greenland's peripheral glaciers have experienced large-scale mass loss, resulting in a substantial contribution to sea level rise. While their total area of Greenland ice cover is relatively small (4%), their mass loss is disproportionally large compared to the Greenland ice...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Khan, Shfaqat A., Colgan, William, Neumann, Thomas A., van den Broeke, Michiel R., Brunt, Kelly M., Noel, Brice, Bamber, Jonathan L., Hassan, Javed, Bjork, Anders A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2022
Subjects:
Greenland
ice mass loss
Icesat-2
peripheral glacier
satellite altimetry
sea level rise
SHEET SURFACE ELEVATION
MASS-BALANCE
FIRN-DENSIFICATION
RECONCILED ESTIMATE
BRIEF-COMMUNICATION
CAPS
TIME
MAP
glacier
Ice Sheet
North Greenland
Online Access:https://curis.ku.dk/portal/da/publications/accelerating-ice-loss-from-peripheral-glaciers-in-north-greenland(50381bd0-95ca-427c-a9d1-aec5015d6483).html
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL098915
https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/311724661/Accelerating_Ice_Loss_From_Peripheral_Glaciers_in_North_Greenland.pdf
Description
Summary:In recent decades, Greenland's peripheral glaciers have experienced large-scale mass loss, resulting in a substantial contribution to sea level rise. While their total area of Greenland ice cover is relatively small (4%), their mass loss is disproportionally large compared to the Greenland ice sheet. Satellite altimetry from Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and ICESat-2 shows that mass loss from Greenland's peripheral glaciers increased from 27.2 +/- 6.2 Gt/yr (February 2003-October 2009) to 42.3 +/- 6.2 Gt/yr (October 2018-December 2021). These relatively small glaciers now constitute 11 +/- 2% of Greenland's ice loss and contribute to global sea level rise. In the period October 2018-December 2021, mass loss increased by a factor of four for peripheral glaciers in North Greenland. While peripheral glacier mass loss is widespread, we also observe a complex regional pattern where increases in precipitation at high altitudes have partially counteracted increases in melt at low altitude.

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