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Present destabilization of marine-based sectors in Greenland may increase sea level for centuries to come.

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Between 2003-2016, the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) was one of the largest contributors to sea level rise, as it lost about 255 Gt of ice per year. This mass loss slowed in 2017 and 2018 to about 100 Gt yr −1. Here we examine further changes in rate of GrIS mass loss, by analyzing data from the GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment-Follow On) satellite mission, launched in May 2018. Using simulations with regional climate models we show that the mass losses observed in 2017 and 2018 by the GRACE and GRACE-FO missions are lower than in any other two year period between 2003 and 2019, the combined period of the two missions. We find that this reduced ice loss results from two anomalous cold summers in western Greenland, compounded by snow-rich autumn and winter conditions in the east. For 2019, GRACE-FO reveals a return to high melt rates leading to a mass loss of 223 ± 12 Gt month −1 during the month of July alone, and a record annual mass loss of 532 ± 58 Gt yr −1 .

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Abstract. We present regional-scale mass balances for 25 drainage basins of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS) from satellite observations of the Gravity and Climate Experiment (GRACE) for time period January 2003 to September 2012. Satellite gravimetry estimates of the AIS mass balance are strongly influenced by mass movement in the Earth interior caused by ice advance and retreat during the last glacial cycle. Here, we develop an improved glacial-isostatic adjustment (GIA) estimate for Antarctica using newly available GPS uplift rates, allowing us to more accurately separate GIA-induced trends in the GRACE gravity fields from those caused by current imbalances of the AIS. Our revised GIA estimate is considerably lower than previous predictions, yielding an estimate of apparent mass change of 53 ± 18 Gt yr−1. Therefore, our AIS mass balance of −114 ± 23 Gt yr−1 is less negative than previous GRACE estimates. The northern Antarctic Peninsula and the Amundsen Sea sector exhibit the largest mass loss (−26 ± 3 Gt yr−1 and −127 ± 7 Gt yr−1, respectively). In contrast, East Antarctica exhibits a slightly positive mass balance (26 ± 13 Gt yr−1), which is, however, mostly the consequence of compensating mass anomalies in Dronning Maud and Enderby Land (positive) and Wilkes and George V Land (negative) due to interannual accumulation variations. In total, 6% of the area constitutes about half the AIS imbalance, contributing 151 ± 7 Gt yr−1 (ca. 0.4 mm yr−1) to global mean sea-level change. Most of this imbalance is caused by ice-dynamic speed-up expected to prevail in the near future.

[1] An improved version of the OMCT ocean model with 1 spatial resolution provides bottom pressure anomalies for the new release 05 of the GRACE Atmosphere and Ocean Dealiasing Level 1B (AOD1B) product. For high-frequency signals with periods below 30 days, this model explains up to 10 cm 2 of the residual sea level variance seen by ENVISAT in large parts of the Southern Ocean, corresponding to about 40% of the observed sea level residuals in many open ocean regions away from the tropics. Comparable amounts of variance are also explained by AOD1B RL05 for colocated in situ ocean bottom pressure recorders. Although secular trends contained in AOD1B RL05 cause GRACE KBRR residuals to increase in shallow water regions, we find a reduction of those residuals over all open ocean areas, indicating that AOD1B RL05 is much better suited to remove nontidal high-frequency mass variability from satellite gravity observations than previous versions of AOD1B.Citation: Dobslaw, H., F. Flechtner, I. Bergmann-Wolf, C. Dahle, R. Dill, S. Esselborn, I. Sasgen, and M. Thomas (2013), Simulating high-frequency atmosphere-ocean mass variability for dealiasing of satellite gravity observations: AOD1B RL05,