Changes in ice front position on Greenland's outlet glaciers from 1992 to 2007

Abstract

Previous studies in Greenland show that retreat of tidewater glaciers may be linked to recent increases in ice loss, raising Greenland's contribution to sea level rise. We examined ice front changes of 203 tidewater glaciers, land‐terminating glaciers, and glaciers terminating with ice shelves to understand Greenland glacier behavior over three periods: 1992–2000, 2000–2006, and 2006–2007. We observed synchronous, ice sheet–wide increases in tidewater retreat during 2000–2006 relative to 1992–2000, coinciding with a 1.1°C increase in mean summer temperature at coastal weather stations. Rates of retreat for the southeast and east slowed during 2006–2007 when temperatures were slightly cooler than the 2000–2006 average. Our work suggests that regional Greenland tidewater retreat responds strongly to climate change, with higher temperatures corresponding to increasing retreat, and helps confirm a link between ice thickness, velocity, and ice front position.

The response of Petermann Glacier, Greenland, to large calving events, and its future stability in the context of atmospheric and oceanic warming

“…Date format is day/ month/year from the interior into the ocean (Rignot and others, 2001) every year. It has the second-longest floating ice shelf among only seven outlet glaciers in Greenland with a permanent floating ice tongue (Rignot, 1997;Rignot and others, 2001;Moon and Joughin, 2008), and flows with an average velocity of just over 1 km a -1 . Unusually for a major Greenland outlet glacier, 80% of the mass lost from Petermann ice tongue is through submarine ice melt (Rignot and others, 2001), while calving takes place only occasionally, and then occurs as large tabular calving events (Johnson and others, 2011).…”

A physically based calving model applied to marine outlet glaciers and implications for the glacier dynamics

“…Indeed, a wide range of observations applying to both current ice masses and palaeo-ice sheets point to iceberg calving as a major factor in rapid ice-sheet changes (Van der Veen, 2002). Rapid changes in ice dynamics of Greenland outlet glaciers have been documented in a number of recent studies (Thomas and others, 2003;others, 2004, 2008a,b,c;Howat and others, 2005Howat and others, , 2007Howat and others, , 2008bLuckman and others, 2006;Rignot and Kanagaratnam, 2006;Csatho and others, 2008;Moon and Joughin, 2008). In particular, recent changes on Jakobshavn Isbrae on the west coast, and Helheim and Kangerdlugssuaq glaciers on the east coast have been detailed on seasonal timescales.…”

Dynamic changes in outlet glaciers in northern Greenland from 1948 to 2015

“…Howat and Eddy, 2012;Moon and Joughin, 2008). For each glacier, a rectilinear box was drawn parallel to the direction of glacier flow (Figure 2), and extending further inland than the minimum frontal position.…”

“…In the northern Greenland, several glaciers have thinned (Rignot et al, 1997), accelerated (Joughin et al, 2010a), and retreated, and have lost large sections of their floating ice tongues between 1990 to 2010 (Box and Decker, 2011;Carr et al, 2017b;20 Jensen et al, 2016;Moon and Joughin, 2008;Murray et al, 2015). This region is also characterised by large fjord-terminating outlet glaciers, many of which terminate in kilometres-long floating ice tongues, while several others are potentially surgetype (Hill et al, 2017;Joughin et al, 1996;Reeh et al, 2003;Rignot et al, 2001).…”