TY - JOUR
T1 - Greenland ice sheet climate disequilibrium and committed sea-level rise
AU - Box, Jason E.
AU - Hubbard, Alun
AU - Bahr, David B.
AU - Colgan, William T.
AU - Fettweis, Xavier
AU - Mankoff, Kenneth D.
AU - Wehrlé, Adrien
AU - Noël, Brice
AU - Wouters, Bert
AU - More Authors, null
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet is one of the largest sources of contemporary sea-level rise (SLR). While process-based models place timescales on Greenland’s deglaciation, their confidence is obscured by model shortcomings including imprecise atmospheric and oceanic couplings. Here, we present a complementary approach resolving ice sheet disequilibrium with climate constrained by satellite-derived bare-ice extent, tidewater sector ice flow discharge and surface mass balance data. We find that Greenland ice imbalance with the recent (2000–2019) climate commits at least 274 ± 68 mm SLR from 59 ± 15 × 103 km2 ice retreat, equivalent to 3.3 ± 0.9% volume loss, regardless of twenty-first-century climate pathways. This is a result of increasing mass turnover from precipitation, ice flow discharge and meltwater run-off. The high-melt year of 2012 applied in perpetuity yields an ice loss commitment of 782 ± 135 mm SLR, serving as an ominous prognosis for Greenland’s trajectory through a twenty-first century of warming.
AB - Ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet is one of the largest sources of contemporary sea-level rise (SLR). While process-based models place timescales on Greenland’s deglaciation, their confidence is obscured by model shortcomings including imprecise atmospheric and oceanic couplings. Here, we present a complementary approach resolving ice sheet disequilibrium with climate constrained by satellite-derived bare-ice extent, tidewater sector ice flow discharge and surface mass balance data. We find that Greenland ice imbalance with the recent (2000–2019) climate commits at least 274 ± 68 mm SLR from 59 ± 15 × 103 km2 ice retreat, equivalent to 3.3 ± 0.9% volume loss, regardless of twenty-first-century climate pathways. This is a result of increasing mass turnover from precipitation, ice flow discharge and meltwater run-off. The high-melt year of 2012 applied in perpetuity yields an ice loss commitment of 782 ± 135 mm SLR, serving as an ominous prognosis for Greenland’s trajectory through a twenty-first century of warming.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85137015068&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41558-022-01441-2
DO - 10.1038/s41558-022-01441-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85137015068
SN - 1758-678X
VL - 12
SP - 808
EP - 813
JO - Nature Climate Change
JF - Nature Climate Change
IS - 9
ER -
