Mass balance of the Antarctic Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2017

• Published in: Nature
• Main Authors: Andrew Shepherd, Erik Ivins, Eric Rignot, Ben Smith, Michiel VDBroeke, Isabella Velicogna, Pippa Whitehouse, Kate Briggs, Ian Joughin, Gerhard Krinner, Sophie Nowicki, Tony Payne, Ted Scambos, Nicole Schlegel, Geruo A, Cécile Agosta, Andreas Ahlstrøm, Greg Babonis, Valentina Barletta, Alejandro Blazquez, Jennifer Bonin, Beata Csatho, Richard Cullather, Denis Felikson, Xavier Fettweis, Rene Forsberg, Hubert Gallee, Alex Gardner, Lin Gilbert, Andreas Groh, Brian Gunter, Edward Hanna, Christopher Harig, Veit Helm, Alexander Horvath, Martin Horwath, Shfaqat Khan, Kristian Kjeldsen, Hannes Konrad, Peter Langen, Benoit Lecavalier, Bryant Loomis, Scott Luthcke, Malcolm McMillan, Daniele Melini, Sebastian Mernild, Yara Mohajerani, Philip Moore, Jeremie Mouginot, Gorka Moyano, Alan Muir, Thomas Nagler, Grace Nield, Johan Nilsson, Brice Noel, Ines Otosaka, Mark Pattle, William Peltier, Nadege Pie, Roelof Rietbroek, Helmut Rott, LouiseSandberg Sørensen, Ingo Sasgen, Himanshu Save, Bernd Scheuchl, Ernst Schrama, Ludwig Schröder, KiWeon Seo, Sebastian Simonsen, Tom Slater, Giorgio Spada, Tyler Sutterley, Matthieu Talpe, Lev Tarasov, Willem JVdeBerg, Wouter vanderWal, Melchior van Wessem, BramhaDutt Vishwakarma, David Wiese, Bert Wouters
• Other Authors: Erik Ivin, Kate Brigg, Ted Scambo, Greg Baboni, Xavier Fettwei, Bryant Loomi
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: NN; Antarc*; Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; Antarctica; East Antarctica; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; West Antarctica
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11585/771695; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0179-y; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0179-y

The Antarctic Ice Sheet is an important indicator of climate change and driver of sea-level rise. Here we combine satellite observations of its changing volume, flow and gravitational attraction with modelling of its surface mass balance to show that it lost 2,720 ± 1,390 billion tonnes of ice between 1992 and 2017, which corresponds to an increase in mean sea level of 7.6 ± 3.9 millimetres (errors are one standard deviation). Over this period, ocean-driven melting has caused rates of ice loss from West Antarctica to increase from 53 ± 29 billion to 159 ± 26 billion tonnes per year; ice-shelf collapse has increased the rate of ice loss from the Antarctic Peninsula from 7 ± 13 billion to 33 ± 16 billion tonnes per year. We find large variations in and among model estimates of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment for East Antarctica, with its average rate of mass gain over the period 1992–2017 (5 ± 46 billion tonnes per year) being the least certain.