Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Balance Reconstruction. Part II: Surface Mass Balance (1840–2010)*

Surface mass-balance changes of the Greenland ice sheet

Mass loss from the Greenland ice sheet over the past decade has caused the impression that the ice sheet has been behaving anomalously to the warming of the 1990s. We have reconstructed the recent (1866–2005) surface mass-balance (SMB) history of the Greenland ice sheet on a 5 5 km grid using a runoff-retention model based on the positive degree-day method. The model is forced with new datasets...

Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet at High Elevations.

Comparison of ice discharge from higher elevation areas of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet with total snow accumulation gives estimates of ice thickening rates over the past few decades. On average, the region has been in balance, but with thickening of 21 centimeters per year in the southwest and thinning of 30 centimeters per year in the southeast. The north of the ice sheet shows less variabi...

Estimation of the Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance during 20th and 21st centuries

Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet.

The Antarctic contribution to sea-level rise has long been uncertain. While regional variability in ice dynamics has been revealed, a picture of mass changes throughout the continental ice sheet is lacking. Here, we use satellite radar altimetry to measure the elevation change of 72% of the grounded ice sheet during the period 1992-2003. Depending on the density of the snow giving rise to the o...

Reconstruction of the 1979–2006 Greenland ice sheet surface mass balance using the regional climate model MAR

Results from a 28-year simulation (1979– 2006) over the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) reveal an increase of solid precipitation (+0.4±2.5 km3 yr−2) and runoff (+7.9±3.3 km3 yr−2) of surface meltwater. The net effect of these competing factors is a significant Surface Mass Balance (SMB) loss of −7.2±5.1 km3 yr−2. The contribution of changes in the net water vapour flux (+0.02±0.09 km3 yr−2) and rai...