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Climate science

A history of Greenland's ice loss

Nature volume 528, pages 341–343 (2015)Cite this article

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Aerial photographs, remote-sensing observations and geological evidence together provide a reconstruction of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet since 1900 — a great resource for climate scientists. See Letter p.396

Loss of ice-sheet mass is a major contributor to current sea-level rise, and is expected to continue as global warming proceeds1. Detailed reconstructions of changes in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets over the past few decades are available, based on remotely sensed data. But extending this record further into the past poses a big problem because of the lack of systematic monitoring of changes in ice-sheet elevations. On page 396 of this issue, Kjeldsen et al.2 present the first observation-based estimate of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet from the end of the nineteenth century, when it began to retreat from its maximum extent achieved during the Little Ice Age (LIA), to the present day. Their findings show how the reconstruction of past ice-sheet changes helps to account for sources of sea-level rise and improves our understanding of the major processes controlling ice-sheet mass loss.

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Figure 1: The Upernavik Ice Stream in northwest Greenland.

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References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beata M. Csatho is in the Department of Geological Sciences, University at Buffalo, New York 14260, USA.,

    Beata M. Csatho

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  1. Beata M. Csatho
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Correspondence to Beata M. Csatho.

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Csatho, B. A history of Greenland's ice loss. Nature 528, 341–343 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/528341a

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