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Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming

Nature Climate Change volume 4, pages 292–299 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Greenland ice sheet has been one of the largest contributors to global sea-level rise over the past 20 years, accounting for 0.5 mm yr−1 of a total of 3.2 mm yr−1. A significant portion of this contribution is associated with the speed-up of an increased number of glaciers in southeast and northwest Greenland. Here, we show that the northeast Greenland ice stream, which extends more than 600 km into the interior of the ice sheet, is now undergoing sustained dynamic thinning, linked to regional warming, after more than a quarter of a century of stability. This sector of the Greenland ice sheet is of particular interest, because the drainage basin area covers 16% of the ice sheet (twice that of Jakobshavn Isbræ) and numerical model predictions suggest no significant mass loss for this sector, leading to an under-estimation of future global sea-level rise. The geometry of the bedrock and monotonic trend in glacier speed-up and mass loss suggests that dynamic drawdown of ice in this region will continue in the near future.

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Figure 1: Changes in surface elevations obtained using ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data (Supplementary Section 1.0).
Figure 2: Surface speed, mass loss rates and climate data.
Figure 3: Surface elevation change rates in northeast Greenland using aerial photographs, ICESat, ATM, LVIS and ENVISAT data.
Figure 4: Calving front positions, bed and velocity profiles along the main flow line of NG and ZI.
Figure 5: Sea ice concentration along the northeast Greenland coast.

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Acknowledgements

S.A.K., K.H.K. and I.S.M. were supported by the Danish Research Council (FNU). K.H.K. acknowledges support from Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF94-GeoGenetics). N.K.L. acknowledges support from the Danish Research Council no. 272-09-0095 and the VILLUM Foundation.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Lin Liu is a Present address: Earth System Science Programme, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geodesy, DTU Space, National Space Institute, Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby 2800, Denmark

    Shfaqat A. Khan & Ioana S. Muresan

  2. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 1350, Denmark

    Kurt H. Kjær, Kristian K. Kjeldsen, Anders A. Bjørk & Niels J. Korsgaard

  3. Geodetic Science, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA

    Michael Bevis

  4. Bristol Glaciology Centre, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

    Jonathan L. Bamber

  5. Department of Physics and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA

    John Wahr

  6. Department of Geology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045, USA

    Leigh A. Stearns

  7. Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Utrecht 80005, The Netherlands

    Michiel R. van den Broeke

  8. Department of Geophysics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

    Lin Liu

  9. Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus 8000, Denmark

    Nicolaj K. Larsen

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Contributions

S.A.K. led the writing of the paper and conceived the study. S.A.K. analysed ENVISAT, ICESat, ATM, LVIS data surface and subsurface ocean temperatures. S.A.K. analysed GPS data. J.W. analysed GRACE data. A.A.B. analysed air temperature and glacier front positions. M.R.v.d.B. analysed SMB data. N.J.K. analysed 1978 aerial photographs. All authors contributed to data interpretation and writing of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Shfaqat A. Khan.

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Khan, S., Kjær, K., Bevis, M. et al. Sustained mass loss of the northeast Greenland ice sheet triggered by regional warming. Nature Clim Change 4, 292–299 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2161

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