New Zealand

Mass Balance of Novaya Zemlya Archipelago, Russian High Arctic, using Time-Variable Gravity from GRACE and Altimetry Data from ICESat and Cryosat-2

“…Increased snowmelt and summer runoff contributed to the high ice thinning rates observed by Moholdt et al [11]. Yet, new studies suggest that increased ice discharge from marine terminating glaciers may be significant [13,14,36,38]. Carr et al [14] documented NZEM retreat between 1973 and 2015 for both marineand land-terminating glaciers.…”

“…Marine-terminating glaciers retreated 3.5 faster than land-terminating glaciers (46.9 vs 13.8 m/yr) and faster in the Barents Sea vs Kara Sea (55.9 vs 37.2 m/yr). Glacier recession accelerated after year 2000 on the Barents Sea and after 2003 on the Kara Sea [36,38]. Marine glaciers retreat rates peaked at 85.4 m/yr for the Barents Sea and 64.8 m/yr for the Kara Sea.…”

“…colder atmospheric conditions and lower ocean temperatures, which slowed down the glacial retreat [32]. Several studies have shown that the NZEM has been experiencing a state of prolonged negative mass balance [6,11,22,36]. Moholdt et al [11] used satellite laser altimetry from ICESat and gravity data from GRACE between October 2003 and October 2009 to estimate a glacier loss of 7.6±1.2 to 5.8±3.0 Gt/yr, with rapid glacier thinning at elevations below 500 m (0.9 m/yr).…”