Greenland ice sheet mass balance assessed by PROMICE (1995–2015)

• Published in: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin
• Main Authors: William Colgan, Kenneth D Mankoff, Kristian K Kjeldsen, Anders A Bjørk, Jason E Box, Sebastian B Simonsen, Louise S Sørensen, S. Abbas Khan, Anne M Solgaard, Rene Forsberg, Henriette Skourup, Lars Stenseng, Steen S Kristensen, Sine M Hvidegaard, Michele Citterio, Nanna Karlsson, Xavier Fettweis, Andreas P Ahlstrøm, Signe B Andersen, Dirk van As, Robert S Fausto
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland 2019
• Subjects: Climate Change; Greenland; Greenland Ice Sheet; PROMICE; Database; Geology; QE1-996.5; Geophysics. Cosmic physics; QC801-809; Ice Sheet; Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.34194/GEUSB-201943-02-01; https://doaj.org/article/a054ae8e3b24456fb2434870c94b86dd

The Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE) has measured ice-sheet elevation and thickness via repeat airborne surveys circumscribing the ice sheet at an average elevation of 1708 ± 5 m (Sørensen et al. 2018). We refer to this 5415 km survey as the ‘PROMICE perimeter’. Here, we assess ice-sheet mass balance following the input-output approach of Andersen et al. (2015). We estimate ice-sheet output, or the ice discharge across the ice-sheet grounding line, by applying downstream corrections to the ice flux across the PROMICE perimeter. We subtract this ice discharge from ice-sheet input, or the area-integrated, ice sheet surface mass balance, estimated by a regional climate model. While Andersen et al. (2015) assessed ice-sheet mass balance in 2007 and 2011, this updated input-output assessment now estimates the annual sea-level rise contribution from eighteen sub-sectors of the Greenland ice sheet over the 1995–2015 period.