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

• Published in: Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin
• Main Authors: Colgan, W., Mankoff, Kjeldsen, K., Bjørk, A., Box, J., Simonsen, S., Sørensen, L., Khan, S.A., Solgaard, A., Forsberg, A., Skourup, H., Stenseng, L., Kristensen, S., Hvidegaard, S., Citterio, M., Karlsson, N., Fettweis, Xavier, Ahlstrøm, A., Andersen, S., van As, D., Fausto, R.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Physical; chemical; mathematical & earth Sciences; Earth sciences & physical geography; Physique; chimie; mathématiques & sciences de la terre; Sciences de la terre & géographie physique; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/238089; https://orbi.uliege.be/bitstream/2268/238089/1/geusb-201943-02-01.pdf; https://doi.org/10.34194/GEUSB-201943-02-01

peer reviewed 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.