Brief communication historical glacier length changes in West Greenland

Past glacier fluctuations provide insight into glacier dynamics, climate change, and the contribution of glaciers to sea-level rise. Here, the length fluctuations since the 19th century of 18 local glaciers in West and South Greenland are presented, extending and updating the study by Weidick (1968)...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Cryosphere
Main Authors: Leclercq, P. W., Weidick, A., Paul, F., Bolch, T., Citterio, M., Oerlemans, J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:https://risweb.st-andrews.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutput/brief-communication-historical-glacier-length-changes-in-west-greenland(8b2a6489-8208-4216-9c81-d339dc8e5cf5).html
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-6-1339-2012
http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84869150048&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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Summary:Past glacier fluctuations provide insight into glacier dynamics, climate change, and the contribution of glaciers to sea-level rise. Here, the length fluctuations since the 19th century of 18 local glaciers in West and South Greenland are presented, extending and updating the study by Weidick (1968). The studied glaciers all showed an overall retreat with an average of 1.2 ± 0.2 km over the 20th century, indicating a general rise of the equilibrium line along the west coast of Greenland during the last century. Furthermore, the average rate of retreat was largest in the first half of the 20th century.