Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from the 1970s to 2023
Ernst Schrama (TU Delft - Aerospace Engineering)
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Abstract
The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are major drivers of global mean sea level rise and are predicted to continue to do so in the future. However, they also represent the largest source of uncertainty in projections of future sea level rise making robust estimates of observed ice sheet mass changes critical. Here, we compare and combine 42 independent estimates of ice sheet mass balance derived from satellite observations of temporal changes in ice sheet flow, volume, and gravitational attraction to determine the ice sheet mass balance from 1972 (Greenland) and 1979 (Antarctica) until 2023. We then use regional climate models to partition the total mass balance into contributions associated with surface mass balance and ice dynamical imbalance. The ice sheets lost 11,309 ± 565 billion tonnes of ice between 1979 and 2023, with glacier dynamical imbalance driving 84% of the ice loss and surface mass balance the remainder. This dataset can be used to track the contribution of the ice sheets to sea level rise and constrain projections of future sea level rise.
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