Identification

Title

Continuity of the mass loss of the world's glaciers and ice caps from the grace and grace follow-on missions

Abstract

We use time series of time-variable gravity from the Gravitational Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) missions to evaluate the mass balance of the world's glaciers and ice caps (GIC) for the time period April 2002 to September 2019, excluding Antarctica and Greenland peripheral glaciers. We demonstrate continuity of the mass balance record across the GRACE/GRACE-FO data gap using independent data from the GMAO Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) reanalysis. We report an average mass loss of 281.5 +/- 30 Gt/yr, an acceleration of 50 +/- 20 Gt/yr per decade, and a 13-mm cumulative sea level rise for the analyzed period. Seven regions dominate the mass loss, with the largest share from the Arctic: Alaska (72.5 +/- 8 Gt/yr), Canadian Arctic Archipelago (73.0 +/- 9 Gt/yr), Southern Andes (30.4 +/- 13 Gt/yr), High Mountain Asia (HMA) (28.8 +/- 11 Gt/yr), Russian Arctic (20.2 +/- 6 Gt/yr), Iceland (15.9 +/- 4 Gt/yr), and Svalbard (12.1 +/- 4 Gt/yr). At the regional level, the analysis of acceleration is complicated by a strong interannual to decadal variability in mass balance that is well reproduced by the GRACE-calibrated MERRA-2 data.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7pc35md

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-05-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact