Slight Slippage Acceleration

Relative to 2004, the ice mass of Greenland is losing weight.



Nature 443, 329-331(21 September 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature05168; Received 21 June 2006; Accepted 14 August 2006
Acceleration of Greenland ice mass loss in spring 2004

Isabella Velicogna1, and John Wahr

Abstract

In 2001 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projected the contribution to sea level rise from the Greenland ice sheet to be between -0.02 and +0.09 m from 1990 to 2100 (ref. 1). However, recent work (2, 3, 4) has suggested that the ice sheet responds more quickly to climate perturbations than previously thought, particularly near the coast. Here we use a satellite gravity survey by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) conducted from April 2002 to April 2006 to provide an independent estimate of the contribution of Greenland ice mass loss to sea level change. We detect an ice mass loss of 248 plusminus 36 km3 yr-1, equivalent to a global sea level rise of 0.5 plusminus 0.1 mm yr-1. The rate of ice loss increased by 250 per cent between the periods April 2002 to April 2004 and May 2004 to April 2006, almost entirely due to accelerated rates of ice loss in southern Greenland; the rate of mass loss in north Greenland was almost constant. Continued monitoring will be needed to identify any future changes in the rate of ice loss in Greenland.


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