Recent changes in glacier velocities and thinning at Novaya Zemlya

Melkonian, A. K.; Willis, M. J.; Pritchard, M. E.; Stewart, Adam J.

doi:10.1016/j.rse.2015.11.001

Cited by 46 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…This much larger contribution from NVZ has been attributed to it experiencing longer melt seasons and high snowmelt variability between 1995 and 2011 (Zhao et al, 2014). More recent estimates suggest that the mass balance of the RHA was −6.9 ± 7.4 Gt between 2004(Matsuo and Heki, 2013 and that thinning rates increased to −0.40 ± 0.09 m a −1 between 2012/13 and 2014, compared to the long-term average of −0.23 ± 0.04 m a −1 (1952 and 2014) (Melkonian et al, 2016). The RHA is, therefore, following the Arctic-wide pattern of negative mass balance and glacier retreat that has been observed in Greenland (Enderlin et al, 2014;McMillan et al, 2016), Svalbard (Moholdt et al, 2010a, b;Nuth et al, 2010), and the Canadian Arctic (Enderlin et al, 2014;McMillan et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This implied that outlet glacier retreat was having a limited and/or delayed impact on inland ice or that available data were not adequately capturing surface elevation change in outlet glacier basins (Carr et al, 2014). More recent results demonstrate that thinning rates on marine-terminating glaciers on the Barents Sea coast are much higher than on their land-terminating neighbours, suggesting that glacier retreat and calving do promote inland, dynamic thinning (Melkonian et al, 2016). However, higher melt rates also contributed to surface lowering, evidenced by the concurrent increase in thinning observed on landterminating outlets (Melkonian et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recent results demonstrate that thinning rates on marine-terminating glaciers on the Barents Sea coast are much higher than on their land-terminating neighbours, suggesting that glacier retreat and calving do promote inland, dynamic thinning (Melkonian et al, 2016). However, higher melt rates also contributed to surface lowering, evidenced by the concurrent increase in thinning observed on landterminating outlets (Melkonian et al, 2016). High rates of dynamic thinning have also been identified on Severnaya Zemlya, following the collapse of the Matusevich Ice Shelf in 2012 (Willis et al, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exceptional retreat of Novaya Zemlya's marine-terminating outlet glaciers between 2000 and 2013

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Novaya Zemlya (NVZ) has experienced rapid ice loss and accelerated marine-terminating glacier retreat during the past 2 decades. However, it is unknown whether this retreat is exceptional longer term and/or whether it has persisted since 2010. Investigating this is vital, as dynamic thinning may contribute substantially to ice loss from NVZ, but is not currently included in sea level rise predictions. Here, we use remotely sensed data to assess controls on NVZ glacier retreat between 1973/76 and 2015. Glaciers that terminate into lakes or the ocean receded 3.5 times faster than those that terminate on land. Between 2000 and 2013, retreat rates were significantly higher on marine-terminating outlet glaciers than during the previous 27 years, and we observe widespread slowdown in retreat, and even advance, between 2013 and 2015. There were some common patterns in the timing of glacier retreat, but the magnitude varied between individual glaciers. Rapid retreat between 2000 and 2013 corresponds to a period of significantly warmer air temperatures and reduced sea ice concentrations, and to changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). We need to assess the impact of this accelerated retreat on dynamic ice losses from NVZ to accurately quantify its future sea level rise contribution.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exceptional retreat of Novaya Zemlya's marine-terminating outlet glaciers between 2000 and 2013

et al. 2017

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“…For the time period they cover, their particular strength is in global scale observations with consistent and reproducible methods. Key products derived from satellite data are glacier outlines and inventories (in combination with a digital elevation model, DEM, e.g., Andreassen et al 2012), consistent DEMs of the surface topography with global coverage (e.g., the SRTM DEM or the ASTER GDEM), elevation changes over entire glaciers from differencing DEMs from two epochs or at points from repeat altimetry (e.g., Nuth et al 2010), surface flow velocities for determination of mass fluxes (e.g., Melkonian et al 2013Melkonian et al , 2016, glacier mass changes from space-borne gravimetry observations (using the GRACE satellites, e.g., Jacob et al 2012) and glacier facies mapping (ice, firn, snow) that is used as a proxy for mass balance (e.g., Rabatel et al 2008) and an important input dataset for hydrologic models or for calibration and/or validation of distributed mass balance models (e.g., Immerzeel et al 2009;Paul et al 2009). …”

Section: Satellite Remote Sensing Of Glaciersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The recent sub-meter resolution optical satellites such as Quickbird, WorldView and Pléiades provide high-resolution spaceborne DEMs that push the spatial and temporal limits of what can be achieved with spaceborne DEM differencing (Kronenberg et al 2016;Melkonian et al 2016;Berthier et al 2014). …”

Section: Elevation and Volume Changesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observation-Based Estimates of Global Glacier Mass Change and Its Contribution to Sea-Level Change

Marzeion¹,

Champollion²,

Haeberli³

et al. 2017

Space Sciences Series of ISSI

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Glaciers have strongly contributed to sea-level rise during the past century and will continue to be an important part of the sea-level budget during the twenty-first century. Here, we review the progress in estimating global glacier mass change from in situ measurements of mass and length changes, remote sensing methods, and mass balance modeling driven by climate observations. For the period before the onset of satellite observations, different strategies to overcome the uncertainty associated with monitoring only a small sample of the world's glaciers have been developed. These methods now yield estimates generally reconcilable with each other within their respective uncertainty margins. Whereas this is also the case for the recent decades, the greatly increased number of estimates obtained from remote sensing reveals that gravimetry-based methods typically arrive at lower mass loss estimates than the other methods. We suggest that strategies for better interconnecting the different methods are needed to ensure progress and to increase the temporal and spatial detail of reliable glacier mass change estimates.

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A 2012–2021 high‐resolution glacier mass balance estimate for Icelandic ice caps based on ArcticDEM and ICESat‐2

Luo,

Ke,

Fan

2024

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Ice caps are important water resources for Iceland and are threatened by climate change. Despite their importance and vulnerability, the geodetic glacier mass balance estimate for the recent decade lacks a high‐resolution result. To address this gap, we first co‐registered the 2012–2021 ArcticDEM (v4) strips with ICESat‐2 points acquired over off‐ice areas and evaluated the accuracy of the co‐registered DEMs. We then applied a per‐pixel weighted liner regression to the multi‐temporal ArcticDEM strips and generated a high‐resolution (2 m) glacier surface elevation change rate for six major Icelandic ice caps. Based on these estimates we calculated the geodetic mass balance. Additionally, we estimated the seasonal relative surface elevation changes using ICESat‐2 ATL06 data for the 2019 to 2021 period. The results showed the co‐registered ArcticDEM strips exhibit good accuracy, with a standard deviation of 1.15 m across the Icelandic ice cap regions. Between 2012 and 2021, Icelandic ice caps experienced a state of mass loss, with a surface elevation change rate of −0.57 ± 0.21 m/a, corresponding to a mass loss of −0.51 ± 0.02 m w.e/a. Spatial variability in glacier surface elevation changes among different Icelandic ice caps ranges −0.19 m/a to −0.75 m/a. The Langjökull ice cap exhibited the most severe glacier mass loss at −0.68 ± 0.006 m w.e/a. Furthermore, our observations indicate a change in seasonal trends occurred across all six ice caps from 2019 to 2021. Specifically, the glacier surface thickening decreased during the accumulation period, while the thinning rate increased during the ablation period. These findings highlight that ArcticDEM v4 strips provide new insights into the mass balance of Icelandic glaciers and will aid in making future water management decisions. Moreover, the high‐resolution surface elevation topography and change rates provided in this study may contribute to an improved understanding of the influence of glacier dynamics on glacier change.

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Recent changes in glacier velocities and thinning at Novaya Zemlya

Cited by 46 publications

References 34 publications

Exceptional retreat of Novaya Zemlya's marine-terminating outlet glaciers between 2000 and 2013

Exceptional retreat of Novaya Zemlya's marine-terminating outlet glaciers between 2000 and 2013

Observation-Based Estimates of Global Glacier Mass Change and Its Contribution to Sea-Level Change

A 2012–2021 high‐resolution glacier mass balance estimate for Icelandic ice caps based on ArcticDEM and ICESat‐2

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