Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) in Greenland: A Review

• Published in: Current Climate Change Reports
• Main Authors: Wake, Leanne, Lecavalier, Benoit, Bevis, Mike
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Springer 2016
• Subjects: F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences; Greenland
• Online Access: https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/27138/; https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-016-0040-z; https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/27138/1/FINAL_TEXT_NRL.pdf; https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/27138/7/art%253A10.1007%252Fs40641-016-0040-z.pdf

Using the most recently published regional and global deglaciation histories we provide updated estimates of the Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) component of present day uplift at a suite of GPS sites in Greenland. The GIA of the solid Earth beneath Greenland contributes -6 to +10 Gt/yr to the present day mass trends observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), representing <5% contribution to the observed mass trends over the last decade. Although the contribution of GIA to GRACE estimates of mass imbalance is insignificant for Greenland as a whole, differences between deglacial models reviewed here and their assumed viscoelastic Earth structures result in significantly different estimates of regional patterns and magnitudes of GIA. This means that for some areas of Greenland (e.g. the north-west, south- and north-east) the use of GNSS to estimate elastic uplift patterns is more affected by the choice of GIA correction applied.