Future sea-level rise from Greenland’s main outlet glaciers in a warming climate

Nick, F. M.; Vieli, Andreas; Andersen, M.; Joughin, Ian; Payne, Antony J.; Edwards, Tamsin; Pattyn, Frank; Wal, R. S. W. van de

doi:10.1038/nature12068

Cited by 271 publications

(317 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Csatho et al [67] found that mass loss is not proportional to the drainage basin area, and that the majority of Greenland mass loss during the 2003-2009 period (∼80 %) was due to thinning of small to moderately sized drainage basins rather than the four large glaciers modeled by Nick et al [95]. In contrast, Enderlin et al [69] found that these four glaciers represented 42 % of the ice sheet discharge change from 2000 to 2012 as opposed to the 20 % expected from an assumption of proportionality with drainage area.…”

Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Projections of SMB were made based on a relation between mass loss and temperature derived from regional climate modeling forced with CMIP5 AOGCMs [94], with additional allowances for methodological uncertainties and changes in ice sheet topography [88]. Projections of rapid change in discharge were based largely on flowline modeling of four of the larger outlet glaciers, with results scaled up by ∼5 times because these glaciers drain ∼20 % of the ice sheet by area [95], giving likely ranges of 0.02 to 0.09 m by 2100 for RCP8.5, and 0.01 to 0.06 m for the three RCPs of lower forcing, for which there was insufficient information to assess scenario dependence [88]. Likely ranges for projections of the total contributions to GMSL rise by 2100 relative to 1986-2005 range from 0.04 to 0.12 m for RCP2.6 to 0.09 to 0.28 m for RCP8.5 [88].…”

Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Clark

Church

Gregory

et al. 2015

Curr Clim Change Rep

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Considerable progress has been made in understanding the present and future regional and global sea level in the 2 years since the publication of the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Here, we evaluate how the new results affect the AR5's assessment of (i) historical sea level rise, including attribution of that rise and implications for the sea level budget, (ii) projections of the components and of total global mean sea level (GMSL), and (iii) projections of regional variability and emergence of the anthropogenic signal. In each of these cases, new work largely provides additional evidence in support of the AR5 assessment, providing greater confidence in those findings. Recent analyses confirm the twentieth century sea level rise, with some analyses showing a slightly smaller rate before 1990 and some a slightly larger value than reported in the AR5. There is now more evidence of an acceleration in the rate of rise. Ongoing ocean heat uptake and associated thermal expansion have continued since 2000, and are consistent with ocean thermal expansion reported in the AR5. A significant amount of heat is being stored deeper in the water column, with a larger rate of heat uptake since 2000 compared to the previous decades and with the largest storage in the Southern Ocean. The first formal detection studies for ocean thermal expansion and glacier mass loss since the AR5 have confirmed the AR5 finding of a significant anthropogenic contribution to sea level rise over the last 50 years. New projections of glacier loss from two regions suggest smaller contributions to GMSL rise from these regions than in studies assessed by the AR5; additional regional studies are required to further assess whether there are broader implications of these results. Mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased surface melting, and from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, primarily as a result of increased ice discharge, has accelerated. The largest estimates of acceleration in mass loss from the two ice sheets for 2003-2013 equal or exceed the acceleration of GMSL rise calculated from the satellite altimeter sea level record over the longer period of 1993-2014. However, when increased mass gain in land water storage and parts of East Antarctica, and decreased mass loss from glaciers in Alaska and some other regions are taken into account, the net acceleration in the ocean mass gain is consistent with the satellite altimeter record. New studies suggest that a marine ice sheet instability (MISI) may have been initiated in parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), but that it will affect only a limited number of ice streams in the twenty-first century. New projections of mass loss from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets by 2100, including a contribution from parts of WAIS undergoing unstable retreat, suggest a contribution that falls largely within the likely range (i.e., two thirds probability) of the AR5. These new results increase confidence in the AR5 likel...

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Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Greenland Ice Sheetmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Clark

Church

Gregory

et al. 2015

Curr Clim Change Rep

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“…The computation of the crevasse penetration depth is based on the work of Nye (1957), and depends on the equilibrium between longitudinal stretching (opening term) and cryostatic pressure (closing term). This so-called "crevasse depth" criterion has been applied to individual marine-terminated glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, and enabled the successful reproduction of variations in the front (Nick et al, 2010;Otero et al, 2010;Nick et al, 2013;Cook et al, 2014). Although the model of Nick et al (2010) accounts for basal crevasse propagation, which improves the ability of a model to reproduce observed behaviour, it is based on an instantaneous stress balance combined with an empirical criterion for calving.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining damage and fracture mechanics to model calving

et al. 2014

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Abstract.Calving of icebergs is a major negative component of polar ice-sheet mass balance. Here we present a new calving model relying on both continuum damage mechanics and linear elastic fracture mechanics. This combination accounts for both the slow sub-critical surface crevassing and the rapid propagation of crevasses when calving occurs. First, damage to the ice occurs over long timescales and enhances the viscous flow of ice. Then brittle fractures propagate downward, at very short timescales, when the ice body is considered as an elastic medium. The model was calibrated on Helheim Glacier, Southeast Greenland, a well-monitored glacier with fast-flowing outlet. This made it possible to identify sets of model parameters to enable a consistent response of the model and to produce a dynamic equilibrium in agreement with the observed stable position of the Helheim ice front between 1930 and today.

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“…Incorporating the effects of ponded meltwater (allowing deeper crevasse penetration) also allows calving rates to be driven by climate fluctuations via changes in surface runoff (e.g. Nick et al, 2013). These physically-based calving mechanisms have begun to be implemented in numerical modelling (e.g., of Antarctica) (Albrecht et al, 2011;Levermann et al, 2012;Pollard and DeConto, 2012;Albrecht and Levermann, 2014;Pollard et al, 2015), but remain particularly challenging in palaeo-applications where the intermittent and often rapid nature of the calving process has to be properly accounted for on long timescales.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the reconstruction of palaeo-ice sheets: Recent advances and future challenges

Stokes

Tarasov

Blomdin

et al. 2015

Quaternary Science Reviews

145

104

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Future sea-level rise from Greenland’s main outlet glaciers in a warming climate

Cited by 271 publications

References 28 publications

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Recent Progress in Understanding and Projecting Regional and Global Mean Sea Level Change

Combining damage and fracture mechanics to model calving

On the reconstruction of palaeo-ice sheets: Recent advances and future challenges

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