Dynamic ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet driven by sustained glacier retreat

King, Michalea D.; Howat, I. M.; Candela, S. G.; Noh, Myoung-Jong; Jeong, Sang Seom; Noël, Brice; Broeke, M. R. van den; Wouters, Bert; Negrete, Adelaide

doi:10.1038/s43247-020-0001-2

Cited by 255 publications

(244 citation statements)

References 35 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

230

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…We also see that fluctuations in mass changes (in Figure 4) and summer temperature (in Figure 15) in the SE and SW basins are highly consistent. The mass loss in the SE basin is primarily due to the increased surface melting due to short term response to climate changes [68], while the other basins were attributed to glacier dynamic and ice discharge. The ice discharge of Jakobshaven Isbra, one of largest contributors at glacier scale to sea level rise, located at the SW basin, has slowed down from~50 Gt/yr in 2012 to~37 Gt/yr in 2016 due to ocean cooling [61,69], and that can be seen in Figure 15, where the temperature of the SW basin since 2013 was also lower than the previous several years.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Climate Change Feedbacks to Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from GRACE

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although a significant effort has been dedicated to studying changes in the mass budget of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), mechanisms behind these changes are not yet fully understood. In this study, we address this issue by investigating the link between climate controls and mass changes of the GrIS between August 2002 and June 2017. We estimate the GrIS mass changes based on averaging the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) monthly gravity field solutions from four processing data centers. We then investigate the possible impact of different climate variables on the GrIS mass changes using the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), temperature, precipitation, and the 700 hPa wind retrieved from the ERA-5 reanalysis. Results indicate a decrease of −267.77 ± 32.67 Gt/yr in the total mass of the GrIS over the 16-year period. By quantifying the relationship between climate controls and mass changes, we observe that mass changes in different parts of Greenland have varying sensitivity to climate controls. The NAO mainly controls mass changes in west Greenland, where the summertime NAO modulations have a greater impact on the summer mass loss than the wintertime NAO modulations have on the winter mass gain. The GrIS mass changes are correlated spatially with summer temperature, especially in southwest Greenland. Mass balance changes in northwest Greenland are mostly affected by wind anomalies. These new findings based on wind anomalies indicate that the summer atmospheric circulation anomalies control surface temperature and snow precipitation and consequently affect mass changes in different parts of Greenland.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Climate Change Feedbacks to Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from GRACE

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…WEGC OPSv5.6 and WEGC Vaisala provide thermodynamic upper air profiles of air temperature, specific humidity and density from which we locally estimate the vertical AHC based on the first three integral terms of Eq. (3) (Kirchengast et al, 2019). In atmospheric domains not fully covered by the data (e.g., in the lower part of the boundary layer for RO or over the polar latitudes for RS), the profiles are vertically completed by collocated ERA5 information.…”

Section: Heat Available To Warm the Atmospherementioning

confidence: 99%

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Schuckmann

Cheng

Palmer

et al. 2020

Earth Syst. Sci. Data

230

237

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. Human-induced atmospheric composition changes cause a radiative imbalance at the top of the atmosphere which is driving global warming. This Earth energy imbalance (EEI) is the most critical number defining the prospects for continued global warming and climate change. Understanding the heat gain of the Earth system – and particularly how much and where the heat is distributed – is fundamental to understanding how this affects warming ocean, atmosphere and land; rising surface temperature; sea level; and loss of grounded and floating ice, which are fundamental concerns for society. This study is a Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) concerted international effort to update the Earth heat inventory and presents an updated assessment of ocean warming estimates as well as new and updated estimates of heat gain in the atmosphere, cryosphere and land over the period 1960–2018. The study obtains a consistent long-term Earth system heat gain over the period 1971–2018, with a total heat gain of 358±37 ZJ, which is equivalent to a global heating rate of 0.47±0.1 W m−2. Over the period 1971–2018 (2010–2018), the majority of heat gain is reported for the global ocean with 89 % (90 %), with 52 % for both periods in the upper 700 m depth, 28 % (30 %) for the 700–2000 m depth layer and 9 % (8 %) below 2000 m depth. Heat gain over land amounts to 6 % (5 %) over these periods, 4 % (3 %) is available for the melting of grounded and floating ice, and 1 % (2 %) is available for atmospheric warming. Our results also show that EEI is not only continuing, but also increasing: the EEI amounts to 0.87±0.12 W m−2 during 2010–2018. Stabilization of climate, the goal of the universally agreed United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 and the Paris Agreement in 2015, requires that EEI be reduced to approximately zero to achieve Earth's system quasi-equilibrium. The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would need to be reduced from 410 to 353 ppm to increase heat radiation to space by 0.87 W m−2, bringing Earth back towards energy balance. This simple number, EEI, is the most fundamental metric that the scientific community and public must be aware of as the measure of how well the world is doing in the task of bringing climate change under control, and we call for an implementation of the EEI into the global stocktake based on best available science. Continued quantification and reduced uncertainties in the Earth heat inventory can be best achieved through the maintenance of the current global climate observing system, its extension into areas of gaps in the sampling, and the establishment of an international framework for concerted multidisciplinary research of the Earth heat inventory as presented in this study. This Earth heat inventory is published at the German Climate Computing Centre (DKRZ, https://www.dkrz.de/, last access: 7 August 2020) under the DOI https://doi.org/10.26050/WDCC/GCOS_EHI_EXP_v2 (von Schuckmann et al., 2020).

show abstract

“…More than 90% of additional energy accumulated from the human enhanced greenhouse effect is stored in the oceans, with multiple recent studies confirming that the world's oceans (especially the upper 2000 m) the warmest in recorded human history and warming 40% faster than projected by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [15]. Over the last decade, arctic sea ice extent has shrunk to the lowest in the 42-year satellite record [14], and recent studies reveal the Greenland ice sheet has entered a new irreversible state of disintegration [16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sustainable Tourism and the Grand Challenge of Climate Change

Scott

2021

Sustainability

110

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Global climate change represents a grand challenge for society, one that is increasingly influencing tourism sector investment, planning, operations, and demand. The paper provides an overview of the core challenges climate change poses to sustainable tourism, key knowledge gaps, and the state of preparedness in the tourism sector. As we begin what is widely considered a decisive climate decade, low sectoral preparedness should be highly disconcerting for the tourism community. Put bluntly, what we have done for the past 30 years has not prepared the sector for the next 30 years of accelerating climate change impacts and the transformation to a decarbonized global economy. The transition from two decades of awareness raising and ambition setting to a decade of determined collective response has massive knowledge requirements and necessitates broad sectoral commitments to: (1) improved communications and knowledge mobilization, (2) increased research capacity and interdisciplinary collaboration, and (3) strategic policy and planning engagement. We in the tourism and sustainability communities must answer this clarion call to shape the future of tourism in a decarbonized and post +3 °C world, for there can be no sustainable tourism if we fail on climate change.

show abstract

Dynamic ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet driven by sustained glacier retreat

Cited by 255 publications

References 35 publications

Recent Climate Change Feedbacks to Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from GRACE

Recent Climate Change Feedbacks to Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from GRACE

Heat stored in the Earth system: where does the energy go?

Sustainable Tourism and the Grand Challenge of Climate Change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About