Mass Loss of Glaciers and Ice Caps Across Greenland Since the Little Ice Age

Accelerating ice loss from the fastest Greenland and Antarctic glaciers

[1] Ice discharge from the fastest glaciers draining the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets – Jakobshavn Isbrae (JI) and Pine Island Glacier (PIG)– continues to increase, and is now more than double that needed to balance snowfall in their catchment basins. Velocity increase probably resulted from decreased buttressing from thinning (and, for JI, breakup) of their floating ice tongues, and from...

A tipping point in refreezing accelerates mass loss of Greenland's glaciers and ice caps

Melting of the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) and its peripheral glaciers and ice caps (GICs) contributes about 43% to contemporary sea level rise. While patterns of GrIS mass loss are well studied, the spatial and temporal evolution of GICs mass loss and the acting processes have remained unclear. Here we use a novel, 1 km surface mass balance product, evaluated against in situ and remote sensing ...

Mass loss of Greenland’s glaciers and ice caps 2003–2008 revealed from ICESat laser altimetry data

Increasing rates of ice mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets revealed by GRACE

[1] We use monthly measurements of time-variable gravity from the GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite gravity mission to determine the ice mass-loss for the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets during the period between April 2002 and February 2009. We find that during this time period the mass loss of the ice sheets is not a constant, but accelerating with time, i.e., that ...

Little Ice Age

Volume 1, The Earth system: physical and chemical dimensions of global environmental change, pp 504–509