Centennial response of Greenland’s three largest outlet glaciers

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Khan, Shfaqat, Bjørk, Anders, Bamber, Jonathan, Morlighem, Mathieu, Bevis, Michael, Kjær, Kurt, Mouginot, Jeremie, Løkkegaard, Anja, Holland, David, Aschwanden, Andy, Zhang, Bao, Helm, Veit, Korsgaard, Niels, Colgan, William, Larsen, Nicolaj, Liu, Lin, Hansen, Karina, Barletta, Valentina, Dahl-Jensen, Trine, Søndergaard, Anne Sofie, Csatho, Beata, Sasgen, Ingo, Box, Jason, Schenk, Toni
• Other Authors: Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP ), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA), European Project: 694188,H2020,ERC-2015-AdG,GlobalMass(2016)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: geo; envir; Greenland; Kangerlussuaq; glacier; groenlandais; Ice Sheet; Jakobshavn
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19580-5; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03026187/file/s41467-020-19580-5.pdf; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03026187

https://www.insu.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/glaciers-groenlandais-et-niveau-de-la-mer?utm_campaign=Newsletter%20de%20l%27Insu&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Revue%20newsletter International audience The Greenland Ice Sheet is the largest land ice contributor to sea level rise. This will continue in the future but at an uncertain rate and observational estimates are limited to the last few decades. Understanding the long-term glacier response to external forcing is key to improving projections. Here we use historical photographs to calculate ice loss from 1880–2012 for Jakobshavn, Helheim, and Kangerlussuaq glacier. We estimate ice loss corresponding to a sea level rise of 8.1 ± 1.1 millimetres from these three glaciers. Projections of mass loss for these glaciers, using the worst-case scenario, Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5, suggest a sea level contribution of 9.1–14.9 mm by 2100. RCP8.5 implies an additional global temperature increase of 3.7 °C by 2100, approximately four times larger than that which has taken place since 1880. We infer that projections forced by RCP8.5 underestimate glacier mass loss which could exceed this worst-case scenario.