Glaciers Dominate Eustatic Sea-Level Rise in the 21st Century

Meier, Mark F.; Dyurgerov, Mark B.; Rick, U. K.; O’Neel, S.; Pfeffer, W. T.; Anderson, Robert S.; Anderson, Suzanne P.; Glazovsky, A. F.

doi:10.1126/science.1143906

Cited by 603 publications

(458 citation statements)

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“…As shown explicitly in section 5, the action of such modern ice sheet melting has a significant impact on Earth rotation. Models of modern land ice melting such as those constrained by GRACE itself [e.g., Cazenave et al, 2009;Peltier, 2009] for the polar regions and by Meier et al [2007] for the small ice sheets and glaciers, must be shown to pass the test provided by the GRACE observations. However, the ICE-5G (VM2) model, and the modest improvements to it that are currently under construction, are precisely the models required to filter ice age influence from these modern space geodetic observations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, this positive outcome is based on the assumption that the rotational response of the planet to surface mass load forcing is that based on the recognition that the effective thickness of the elastic lithosphere is zero in the infinite time limit insofar as the rotational response is concerned. An extremely important caveat to this analysis, however, is that the very large contribution to the global rate of sea level rise due to the melting of small ice sheet and glaciers by Meier et al [2007] is accurate. Their inference of the rate that has been active over the period during which the GRACE satellites have been flying is 1.1 mm yr À1 , almost double their earlier estimates [e.g., Dyurgerov and Meier, 1997].…”

Section: Ice-5g (Vm2) Gia Predictions and The Closure Of The Global Smentioning

confidence: 99%

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On the origins of Earth rotation anomalies: New insights on the basis of both “paleogeodetic” data and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data

2009

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The theory previously developed to predict the impact on Earth's rotational state of the late Pleistocene glaciation cycle is extended. In particular, we examine the extent to which a departure of the infinite time asymptote of the viscoelastic tidal Love number of degree 2, “k2T,” from the observed “fluid” Love number, “kf,” impacts the theory. A number of tests of the influence of the difference in these Love numbers on theoretical predictions of the model of the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) process are explored. Relative sea level history predictions are shown not to be sensitive to the difference even though they are highly sensitive to the influence of the changing rotational state itself. We also explore in detail the accuracy with which the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite system is able to observe the global GIA process including the time‐dependent amplitude of the degree 2 and order 1 spherical harmonic components of the gravitational field, the only components that are significantly influenced by rotational effects. It is explicitly shown that the GRACE observation of these properties of the time‐varying gravitational field is sufficiently accurate to rule out the values predicted by the ICE‐5G (VM2) model of Peltier (2004). However, we also note that this model is constrained only by data from an epoch during which modern greenhouse gas induced melting of both the great polar ice‐sheets and small ice sheets and glaciers was not occurring. Such modern loss of grounded continental ice strongly influences the evolving rotational state of the planet and thus the values of the degree 2 and order 1 Stokes coefficients as they are currently being measured by the GRACE satellite system. A series of sensitivity tests are employed to demonstrate this fact. We suggest that the accuracy of scenarios for modern land ice melting may be tested by ensuring that such scenarios conform to the GRACE observations of these crucial time‐dependent Stokes coefficients.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ice-5g (Vm2) Gia Predictions and The Closure Of The Global Smentioning

confidence: 99%

On the origins of Earth rotation anomalies: New insights on the basis of both “paleogeodetic” data and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data

2009

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“…The sea-level rise estimates of Meehl et al (2007b), Meier et al (2007), Pfeffer et al (2008) and Radić and Hock (2011) mentioned in the introduction all fall at least partly within this range. The Meehl et al (2007b) estimate is slightly lower than our contribution, which might be caused by our initial GIC volume estimate being higher than their highest volume estimate: 0.50 m SLE vs. 0.37 m SLE.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…IPCC AR4 projected a contribution of 0.08-0.15 m sea-level equivalent (SLE) for the A1B scenario (Meehl et al, 2007b), based on a range of climate models and three different values for the initial volume of all glaciers. As a follow-up on IPCC AR4, Meier et al (2007) estimated a GIC contribution of 0.1-0.25 m SLE by 2100, where the range originates from two assumptions for the acceleration of ice loss. Another estimate was presented by Pfeffer et al (2008), who found a GIC contribution of 0.17-0.55 m SLE by 2100, based on kinematically constrained scenarios.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An assessment of uncertainties in using volume-area modelling for computing the twenty-first century glacier contribution to sea-level change

Slangen

Wal

2011

The Cryosphere

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Abstract.A large part of present-day sea-level change is formed by the melt of glaciers and ice caps (GIC). This study focuses on the uncertainties in the calculation of the GIC contribution on a century timescale. The model used is based on volume-area scaling, combined with the mass balance sensitivity of the GIC. We assess different aspects that contribute to the uncertainty in the prediction of the contribution of GIC to future sea-level rise, such as (1) the volume-area scaling method (scaling factor), (2) the glacier data, (3) the climate models, and (4) the emission scenario. Additionally, a comparison of the model results to the 20th century GIC contribution is presented.We find that small variations in the scaling factor cause significant variations in the initial volume of the glaciers, but only limited variations in the glacier volume change. If two existing glacier inventories are tuned such that the initial volume is the same, the GIC sea-level contribution over 100 yr differs by 0.027 m or 18 %. It appears that the mass balance sensitivity is also important: variations of 20 % in the mass balance sensitivity have an impact of 17 % on the resulting sea-level projections. Another important factor is the choice of the climate model, as the GIC contribution to sea-level change largely depends on the temperature and precipitation taken from climate models. Connected to this is the choice of emission scenario, used to drive the climate models. Combining all the uncertainties examined in this study leads to a total uncertainty of 0.052 m or 35 % in the GIC contribution to global mean sea level. Reducing the variance in the climate models and improving the glacier inventories will sigCorrespondence to: A. B. A. Slangen (a.slangen@uu.nl) nificantly reduce the uncertainty in calculating the GIC contributions, and are therefore crucial actions to improve future sea-level projections.

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“…From the mid-1990s to 2000-01 these glaciers lost mass almost twice as rapidly, at a mean rate of about 96 ± 35 km 3 yr À1 w.e., again accounting for roughly 5 to 12% of the observed mean sea-level rise during this recent period of more rapid increase [Arendt et al, 2002]. If global warming continues as projected by the most recent climate model simulations for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) [IPCC, 2007], thinning and retreat of these glaciers, as well as other mountain glaciers worldwide, is likely to accelerate [Meier et al, 2007]. There is thus strong motivation to develop quantitative methods for estimating how much melting glaciers are likely to contribute to rising seal level during the 21st century.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate downscaling for estimating glacier mass balances in northwestern North America: Validation with a USGS benchmark glacier

Zhang

Bhatt

Tangborn

et al. 2007

Geophysical Research Letters

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An atmosphere/glacier modeling system is described for estimating the mass balances of glaciers in both current and future climate in order to estimate their probable future contributions to rising sea level. Dynamically downscaled output from a regional atmospheric model, driven by global atmospheric reanalysis, is used to force a precipitation‐temperature‐area‐altitude (PTAA) glacier mass balance model with daily maximum and minimum temperatures and precipitation. The modeling system is verified by hindcasting the mass balances of Gulkana Glacier, a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) benchmark glacier in the Alaska Range, U.S.A., during a ten‐year period from October 1994 to September 2004. The mass balances simulated with the atmosphere/glacier modeling system are comparable to the USGS measurements, and are also in good agreement with the meteorological station observation‐forced PTAA simulations. The results suggest this is a promising approach for realistic estimation of the future mass balances of the glaciers of northwestern North America.

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Glaciers Dominate Eustatic Sea-Level Rise in the 21st Century

Cited by 603 publications

References 13 publications

On the origins of Earth rotation anomalies: New insights on the basis of both “paleogeodetic” data and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data

On the origins of Earth rotation anomalies: New insights on the basis of both “paleogeodetic” data and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data

An assessment of uncertainties in using volume-area modelling for computing the twenty-first century glacier contribution to sea-level change

Climate downscaling for estimating glacier mass balances in northwestern North America: Validation with a USGS benchmark glacier

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