Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland

Michael Wood; Eric Rignot; Ian Fenty; Lu An; Anders Bjørk; Michiel van den Broeke; Cilan Cai; Emily Kane; Dimitris Menemenlis; Romain Millan; Mathieu Morlighem; Jeremie Mouginot; Brice Noël; Bernd Scheuchl; Isabella Velicogna; Josh K. Willis; Hong Zhang

doi:10.1126/sciadv.aba7282

Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland

Michael Wood, Eric Rignot, Ian Fenty, Lu An, Anders Bjørk, Michiel van den Broeke, Cilan Cai, Emily Kane, Dimitris Menemenlis, Romain Millan, Mathieu Morlighem, Jeremie Mouginot, Brice Noël, Bernd Scheuchl, Isabella Velicogna, Josh K. Willis, Hong Zhang

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retreated when warming increased undercutting by 48%. Conversely, 27 glaciers calving on shallow ridges and 24 in cold, shallow waters retreated little, contributing 15% of the loss, while 10 glaciers retreated substantially following the collapse of several ice shelves. The retreat mechanisms remain undiagnosed at 87 glaciers without ocean and bathymetry data, which controlled 19% of the loss. Ice sheet projections that exclude ocean-induced undercutting may underestimate mass loss by at least a factor of 2.

Original language	English
Article number	eaba7282
Pages (from-to)	1-11
Number of pages	11
Journal	Science advances
Volume	7
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba7282
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This project was conducted at the University of California Irvine as part of NASA?s OMG Mission and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract from NASA. M.W. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by the Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA. ECCO (281945.02.25.03.49) was supported by the NASA Physical Oceanography; Modelling, Analysis, and Prediction; and Cryosphere Programs. M.v.d.B. acknowledges support from the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSC). B.N. was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant VI.Veni.192.019. J.M. and R.M. acknowledge support from the French National Research Agency (ANR) grant (ANR-19-CE01-0011-01). M.M. was supported by the National Science Foundation?s ARCSS program (no. 1504230). J.K.W. acknowledges support from the NASA/JPL OMG (87-19754). Copyright: 2020. All rights reserved.

Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved.

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Cite this

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title = "Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland",

abstract = "The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retreated when warming increased undercutting by 48%. Conversely, 27 glaciers calving on shallow ridges and 24 in cold, shallow waters retreated little, contributing 15% of the loss, while 10 glaciers retreated substantially following the collapse of several ice shelves. The retreat mechanisms remain undiagnosed at 87 glaciers without ocean and bathymetry data, which controlled 19% of the loss. Ice sheet projections that exclude ocean-induced undercutting may underestimate mass loss by at least a factor of 2.",

author = "Michael Wood and Eric Rignot and Ian Fenty and Lu An and Anders Bj{\o}rk and {van den Broeke}, Michiel and Cilan Cai and Emily Kane and Dimitris Menemenlis and Romain Millan and Mathieu Morlighem and Jeremie Mouginot and Brice No{\"e}l and Bernd Scheuchl and Isabella Velicogna and Willis, {Josh K.} and Hong Zhang",

note = "Funding Information: This project was conducted at the University of California Irvine as part of NASA?s OMG Mission and at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology under a contract from NASA. M.W. was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, administered by the Universities Space Research Association under contract with NASA. ECCO (281945.02.25.03.49) was supported by the NASA Physical Oceanography; Modelling, Analysis, and Prediction; and Cryosphere Programs. M.v.d.B. acknowledges support from the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSC). B.N. was funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) VENI grant VI.Veni.192.019. J.M. and R.M. acknowledge support from the French National Research Agency (ANR) grant (ANR-19-CE01-0011-01). M.M. was supported by the National Science Foundation?s ARCSS program (no. 1504230). J.K.W. acknowledges support from the NASA/JPL OMG (87-19754). Copyright: 2020. All rights reserved. Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved.",

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AU - Fenty, Ian

AU - An, Lu

AU - Bjørk, Anders

AU - van den Broeke, Michiel

AU - Cai, Cilan

AU - Kane, Emily

AU - Menemenlis, Dimitris

AU - Millan, Romain

AU - Morlighem, Mathieu

AU - Mouginot, Jeremie

AU - Noël, Brice

AU - Scheuchl, Bernd

AU - Velicogna, Isabella

AU - Willis, Josh K.

AU - Zhang, Hong

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N2 - The retreat and acceleration of Greenland glaciers since the mid-1990s have been attributed to the enhanced intrusion of warm Atlantic Waters (AW) into fjords, but this assertion has not been quantitatively tested on a Greenland-wide basis or included in models. Here, we investigate how AW influenced retreat at 226 marine-terminating glaciers using ocean modeling, remote sensing, and in situ observations. We identify 74 glaciers in deep fjords with AW controlling 49% of the mass loss that retreated when warming increased undercutting by 48%. Conversely, 27 glaciers calving on shallow ridges and 24 in cold, shallow waters retreated little, contributing 15% of the loss, while 10 glaciers retreated substantially following the collapse of several ice shelves. The retreat mechanisms remain undiagnosed at 87 glaciers without ocean and bathymetry data, which controlled 19% of the loss. Ice sheet projections that exclude ocean-induced undercutting may underestimate mass loss by at least a factor of 2.

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Ocean forcing drives glacier retreat in Greenland

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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