Abstract
We use Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) monthly gravity fields to determine the regional acceleration in ice mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica for 2003-2013. We find that the total mass loss is controlled by only a few regions. In Greenland, the southeast and northwest generate 70% of the loss (28058 Gt/yr) mostly from ice dynamics, the southwest accounts for 54% of the total acceleration in loss (25.41.2 Gt/yr(2)) from a decrease in surface mass balance (SMB), followed by the northwest (34%), and we find no significant acceleration in the northeast. In Antarctica, the Amundsen Sea (AS) sector and the Antarctic Peninsula account for 64% and 17%, respectively, of the total loss (18010 Gt/yr) mainly from ice dynamics. The AS sector contributes most of the acceleration in loss (114 Gt/yr(2)), and Queen Maud Land, East Antarctica, is the only sector with a significant mass gain due to a local increase in SMB (63 +/- 5 Gt/yr).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 8130-8137 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Geophysical Research Letters |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 22 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 28 Nov 2014 |
Funding
This work was performed at the UCI and JPL-Caltech; it was supported by the NASA's Cryosphere, Terrestrial Hydrology and IDS Programs, JPL-1390432, UTA12-000609, and UTA13-000917 contracts. Data used in this paper are available upon request to the authors.
Keywords
- mass balance
- time-variable gravity
- Greenland
- sea level
- Antarctica
- remote sensing
- SEA-LEVEL
- RECONCILED ESTIMATE
- SHEET
- VARIABILITY
- GLACIERS
- BALANCE
- DISCHARGE
- FIELD