Surface elevation change and mass balance of Icelandic ice caps derived from swath mode CryoSat-2 altimetry

International audience We apply swath processing to CryoSat-2 interferometric mode data acquired over the Icelandic ice caps to generate maps of rates of surface elevation change at 0.5 km postings. This high-resolution mapping reveals complex surface elevation changes in the region, related to clim...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical Research Letters
Main Authors: Foresta, L., Gourmelen, N., Pálsson, F., Nienow, P., Björnsson, H., Shepherd, A.
Other Authors: Institut de physique du globe de Strasbourg (IPGS), Université de Strasbourg (UNISTRA)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: HAL CCSD 2016
Subjects:
mass balance
ice caps
iceland
radar altimetry
swath processing
[SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]
Vatnajökull
Ice cap
Iceland
Online Access:https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03707559
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03707559/document
https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-03707559/file/Geophysical%20Research%20Letters%20-%202016%20-%20Foresta%20-%20Surface%20elevation%20change%20and%20mass%20balance%20of%20Icelandic%20ice%20caps%20derived.pdf
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL071485
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Summary:International audience We apply swath processing to CryoSat-2 interferometric mode data acquired over the Icelandic ice caps to generate maps of rates of surface elevation change at 0.5 km postings. This high-resolution mapping reveals complex surface elevation changes in the region, related to climate, ice dynamics, and subglacial geothermal and magmatic processes. We estimate rates of volume and mass change independently for the six major Icelandic ice caps, 90% of Iceland's permanent ice cover, for five glaciological years between October 2010 and September 2015. Annual mass balance is highly variable; during the 2014/2015 glaciological year, the Vatnajökull ice cap ( 70% of the glaciated area) experienced positive mass balance for the first time since 1992/1993. Our results indicate that between glaciological years 2010/2011and 2014/2015 Icelandic ice caps have lost 5.8 ± 0.7 Gt a -1 on average, 40% less than the preceding 15 years, contributing 0.016 ± 0.002 mm a -1 to sea level rise.

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