The dynamic response of Greenland tidewater glaciers to oceanic and atmospheric change has varied both spatially and temporally. While some of this variability is likely related to regional climate signals, glacier geometry also appears to be important. In this study, we investigated the environmental and geometric controls on the seasonal and interannual evolution of Helheim and Kangerlussuaq Glaciers, Southeast Greenland, from 2008 to 2016, by combining year‐round, satellite measurements of terminus position, glacier velocity, and surface elevation. While Helheim remained relatively stable with a lightly grounded terminus over this time period, Kangerlussuaq continued to lose mass as its grounding line retreated into deeper water. By summer 2011, Kangerlussuaq's grounding line had retreated into shallower water, and the glacier had an ~5 km long floating ice tongue. We also observed seasonal variations in surface velocity and elevation at both glaciers. At Helheim, seasonal speedups and dynamic thinning occurred in the late summer when the terminus was most retreated. At Kangerlussuaq, we observed summer speedups due to surface‐melt‐induced basal lubrication and winter speedups due to ice‐shelf retreat. We suggest that Helheim and Kangerlussuaq behaved differently on a seasonal timescale due to differences in the spatial extent of floating ice near their termini, which affected iceberg‐calving behavior. Given that seasonal speedups and dynamic thinning can alter this spatial extent, these variations may be important for understanding the long‐term evolution of these and other Greenland tidewater glaciers.

Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden is a major outlet glacier in Northeast-Greenland. Although earlier studies showed that the floating part near the grounding line thinned by 30% between 1999 and 2014, the temporal ice loss evolution, its relation to external forcing and the implications for the grounded ice sheet remain largely unclear. By combining observations of surface features, ice thickness and bedrock data, we find that the ice shelf mass balance has been out of equilibrium since 2001, with large variations of the thinning rates on annual/multiannual time scales. Changes in ice flux and surface ablation are too small to produce this variability. An increased ocean heat flux is the most plausible cause of the observed thinning. For sustained environmental conditions, the ice shelf will lose large parts of its area within a few decades and ice modeling shows a significant, but locally restricted thinning upstream of the grounding line in response.

No abstract

Mass balances of individual glaciers on ice sheets have been previously reported by forming a mass budget of discharged ice and modelled ice sheet surface mass balance or a complementary method which measures volume changes over the glaciated area that are subsequently converted to glacier mass change. On ice sheets, volume changes have been measured predominantly with radar and laser altimeters but InSAR DEM differencing has also been applied on smaller ice bodies. Here, we report for the first time on the synergistic use of volumetric measurements from the CryoSat-2 radar altimetry mission together with TanDEM-X DEM differencing and calculate the mass balance of the two major outlet glaciers of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream: Zachariæ Isstrøm and Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden (79North). The glaciers lost 3.59 ± 1.15 G t a − 1 and 1.01 ± 0.95 G t a − 1 , respectively, between January 2011 and January 2014. Additionally, there has been substantial sub-aqueous mass loss on Zachariæ Isstrøm of more than 11 G t a − 1 . We attribute the mass changes on both glaciers to dynamic downwasting. The presented methodology now permits using TanDEM-X bistatic InSAR data in the context of geodetic mass balance investigations for large ice sheet outlet glaciers. In the future, this will allow monitoring the mass changes of dynamic outlet glaciers with high spatial resolution while the superior vertical accuracy of CryoSat-2 can be used for the vast accumulation zones in the ice sheet interior.

Glaciers distinct from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are currently losing mass rapidly with direct and severe impacts on the habitability of some regions on Earth as glacier meltwater contributes to sea-level rise and alters regional water resources in arid regions. In this review, we present the different techniques developed during the last two decades to measure glacier mass change from space: digital elevation model differencing from stereo-imagery and synthetic aperture radar interferometry, laser and radar altimetry and space gravimetry. We illustrate their respective strengths and weaknesses to survey the mass change of a large Arctic ice body, the Vatnajökull Ice Cap (Iceland) and for the steep glaciers of the Everest area (Himalaya). For entire regions, mass change estimates sometimes disagree when a similar technique is applied by different research groups. At global scale, these discrepancies result in mass change estimates varying by 20 to 30%. Our review confirms the need for more thorough inter-comparison studies to understand the origin of these differences and to better constrain regional to global glacier mass changes and, ultimately, past and future glacier contribution to sea-level rise.