Study on Annual Signals of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass and Associated Influencing Factors Based on GRACE/GRACE-FO Data

• Published in: Land
• Main Authors: Kaifeng Ma, Jing Han, Zhen Li, Junzhen Meng, Qingfeng Hu, Peipei He, Changxu Yao
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2025
• Subjects: GrIS; GRACE/GRACE-FO; mass change; driving factors; lagging; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/land14040705

As global temperatures rise, the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is undergoing accelerating mass loss, with significant implications for sea level rise and climate systems. Using GRACE and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) RL06 data from April 2002 to May 2023, alongside MARv3.14 regional climate model outputs (ice melting, runoff, rainfall, snowfall, and land surface temperature (LST)), we investigated the drivers of GrIS mass changes. Continuous wavelet transform analysis revealed significant annual signals in all variables except snowfall, with wavelet decomposition showing the largest annual amplitudes for ice melting (58.8 Gt/month) and runoff (44.5 Gt/month), surpassing those of GRACE/GRACE-FO (31.1 Gt/month). Cross-correlation analysis identified ice melting, runoff, rainfall, snowfall, and LST as significantly correlated with GrIS mass changes, with ice melting, runoff, and LST emerging as primary drivers, while snowfall and runoff exerted secondary influences. Temporal lags of 3, 4, 4, 7, and 4 months were observed for ice melting, runoff, rainfall, snowfall, and LST, respectively. These findings highlight the complex interplay of climatic and hydrological processes driving GrIS mass loss.