mass balance of east antarctic glaciers and ice shelves from satellite data thevelocityandmassdischarge of ninemajoreast antarcticglaciersnot draining into the ross or filchner ronne ice shelves is investigated using interferometric syntheticapertureradar insar datafromtheeuropeanremote sensingsatellite1and2 ers 1 2 andradarsat 1 theglaciersare david ninnis mertz totten scott denman lambert shiraseandstancomb wills insarisusedtolocatetheirgroundinglinewithpre cision ice velocity is measured with either insar or a speckle tracking technique ice thickness is deduced from prior determined ice shelf elevation assuming hydrostatic equi librium mass fluxes are calculated both at the grounding line and at a flux gate located downstream the grounding line flux is compared to a mass input calculated from snow accumulation to deduce the glacier mass balance the calculation is repeated at the flux gate downstream of the grounding line to estimate the average bottom melt rate of the ice shelf under steady state conditions the main results are 1 grounding lines are found several tens of km upstream of prior identified positions not because of a recent ice sheet retreatbutbecause of the inadequacy of prior determined grounding line positions 2 no gross imbalance between outflow and inflow is detected on the nine glaciersbeing investi gated with anuncertainty of 10 20 prior determined largely positive mass imbalances wereduetoanincorrectlocalizationofthegroundingline 3 highratesofbottommelting 24 7 micea 1 are inferred neargrounding zones where ice reaches the deepestdraft a few glaciers exhibit lower bottom melt rates 4 7 micea 1 bottom melting however appearsto be a major source of mass loss on antarctic ice shelves

reassessment of net surface mass balance in antarctica abstract recent in situ measurements of surface mass balance and improved calculation techniques are used to produce an updated assessment of net surface mass balance over antarctica a new elevation model of antarctica derived from ers 1 satellite altimetry supplemented with conventional data was used to delineate the ice flow drainage basins across antarctica the areas of these basins were calculated using the recent digital descriptions of coastlines and grounding lines the delineation of drainage basins was achieved using an automatic procedure which gave similar results to earlier hand drawn catchment basins more than 1800 published and unpublished in situ measurements of net surface mass balance from antarctica were collated and then interpolated a net surface mass balance map was derived from passive microwave satellite data being employed as a forcing field to control the interpolation of the sparse in situ observations basinwide integrals of net surface mass balance were calculated using t

antarctic mass rates from grace 1 we estimate mass trends over antarctica using gravity variations observed by the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace satellite mission during its first 3 5 years april 2002 november 2005 an image of surface mass trends is constructed from 1 1 pixels over the entire continent and shows two prominent features a region of mass loss along the coast of west antarctica and one of accumulation in east antarctica after adjusting for bias due to smoothing and to grace s limited spatial resolution and removing post glacial rebound pgr effects the rate in west antarctica is 77 14 km3 year similar to a recent estimate of ice mass loss from satellite altimetry and remote sensing data the prominent east antarctic feature in the enderby land region has a rate of 80 16 km3 year published snow ice mass rates from remote sensing measurements indicate approximate ice mass balance in this region suggesting that this feature is either from unquantified snow accumulation in this region or more likely due to unmodeled pgr

satellite gravity and the mass balance of the antarctic ice sheet changes in the earth s gravity field with time have important applications to a broad range of disciplines any process that involves a large enough horizontal redistribution of mass either within the earth or on or above its surface is potentially detectable in particular when ice sheets grow or shrink gravity changes as mass is redistributed in the solid earth and between the oceans and the ice sheets the sources of global sea level rise about 2 mm a 1 over the last century and in particular the contribution of the antarctic ice sheet thereto are not well understood gravity measurements can help to diminish this uncertainty the technology currently exists to measure gravity with high accuracy by a dual satellite mission in which the distance between the satellites is precisely monitored we estimate from recent studies that temporal changes in the gravity field as determined by a satellite gravity mission lasting 5 years at an orbital height of 400 km would be sensitive to changes in the overall mass of the antarctic ice sheet to a precision corresponding to better than 0 01 mm a 1 of sea level change however the effects of three other phenomena that could each produce a temporally varying gravity signal with characteristics comparable to that caused by a change in antarctic ice postglacial rebound inter annual variability in snowfall and atmospheric pressure trends also need to be evaluated postglacial rebound could be partly separated from ice mass changes with the aid of global positioning system campaigns and numerical models of rebound that use improved determinations of mantle viscosity also provided by the gravity mission determination of inter annual ice mass changes will be aided by measurements of moisture flux divergence around the perimeters of the ice sheets and direct observations of inter annual changes by the gravity satellite itself the removal of pressure effects over antarctica will become more effective as the number of automatic weather stations in the interior of the continent increases even after corrections are made for these factors the uncertainties they cause limit the accuracy in the determination of the contribution of the antarctic ice sheet to sea level change to about 0 5 mm a 1 however there is a strong complementarity between gravity measurements and the surface height measurements that will be produced by nasa s laser altimeter mission early next century together they should be able to determine that contribution to an accuracy of about 0 1 mm a 1

fast recession of a west antarctic glacier satellite radar interferometry observations of pine island glacier west antarctica reveal that the glacier hinge line position retreated 1 2 0 3 kilometers per year between 1992 and 1996 which in turn implies that the ice thinned by 3 5 0 9 meters per year the fast recession of pine island glacier predicted to be a possible trigger for the disintegration of the west antarctic ice sheet is attributed to enhanced basal melting of the glacier floating tongue by warm ocean waters

positive mass balance of the ross ice streams west antarctica we have used ice flow velocity measurements from synthetic aperture radar to reassess the mass balance of the ross ice streams west antarctica we find strong evidence for ice sheet growth 26 8 gigatons per year in contrast to earlier estimates indicating a mass deficit 20 9 gigatons per year average thickening is equal to 25 of the accumulation rate with most of this growth occurring on ice stream c whillans ice stream which was thought to have a significantly negative mass balance is close to balance reflecting its continuing slowdown the overall positive mass balance may signal an end to the holocene retreat of these ice streams

stability of the rake during the 1992 landers earthquake an indication for a small stress release we use the high quality data set of the landers earthquake to study in detail the ability of strong motion inversions to resolve the rake during the rupture process initially we constrain the rake to be constant on the fault several inversions with different rake values show that a pure strike slip gives the best fit to the data in a second step we have allowed the rake to vary spatially spatial rake variations are well resolved by the data and remain small the data strongly constrain the earthquake to be a pure strike slip event with almost no variation of the rake we assume that the direction of the slip vector is always close to the direction of the applied stress which itself is the vector sum of the pre existing stress and the dynamic stress changes the stability of the rake on a fault with a dynamical rupture process which is clearly heterogeneous suggests that the pre existing stress level is quite homogeneous and that it dominates over the dynamic stress changes

breakup and conditions for stability of the northern larsen ice shelf antarctica the breakup of ice shelves has been widely regarded as an indicator of climate change1 with observations around the antarctic peninsula having shown a pattern of gradual retreat associated with regional atmospheric warming and increased summer melt and fracturing processes2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 the rapid collapse of the northernmost section of the larsen ice shelf larsen a over a few days in january 1995 indicated that after retreat beyond a critical limit ice shelves may disintegrate rapidly here we use a finite element numerical model that treats ice as a continuum without fracture10 to examine the breakup history2 between 1986 and 1997 of the two northern sections of larsen ice shelf larsen a and larsen b from which we establish stability criteria for ice shelves analysis of various ice shelf configurations reveals characteristic patterns in the strain rates near the ice front which we use to describe the stability of the ice shelf on larsen a only the initial and final ice front configurations show a stable pattern larsen b at present exhibits a stable pattern but if the ice front were to retreat by a further few kilometres it too is likely to enter an irreversible retreat phase

freshening of the ross sea during the late 20th century ocean measurements in the ross sea over the past four decades one of the longest records near antarctica reveal marked decreases in shelf water salinity and the surface salinity within the ross gyre these changes have been accompanied by atmospheric warming on ross island ocean warming at depths of 300 meters north of the continental shelf a more negative southern oscillation index and thinning of southeast pacific ice shelves the freshening appears to have resulted from a combination of factors including increased precipitation reduced sea ice production and increased melting of the west antarctic ice sheet

thinning of the ice sheet in northwest greenland over the past forty years thermal expansion of the oceans as well as melting of glaciers ice sheets and ice caps have been the main contributors to global sea level rise over the past century the greatest uncertainty in predicting future sea level changes lies with our estimates of the mass balance of the ice sheets in greenland and antarctica1 satellite measurements have been used to determine changes in these ice sheets on short timescales demonstrating that surface elevation changes on timescales of decades or less result mainly from variations in snow accumulation2 here we present direct measurements of the changes in surface elevation between 1954 and 1995 on a traverse across the north greenland ice sheet measurements over a time interval of this length should reflect changes in ice flow the important quantity for predicting changes in sea level relatively unperturbed by short term fluctuations in snow accumulation we find only small changes in the eastern part of the transect except for some thickening of the north ice stream on the west side however the thinning rates of the ice sheet are significantly higher and thinning extends to higher elevations than had been anticipated from previous studies3

positive degree day factors for ablation on the greenland ice sheet studied by energy balance modelling ice ablation is related to air temperature by the positive degree day factor variations of the positive degree day factor in west greenland are studied using an energy balance model to simulate ablation under different conditions degree day factors for simulated and measured ice ablation at nordbogletscher and qaman rssup sermia agree well with values around 8 mm d 1 c 1 degree day factors for snow are less than half those for ice energy balance modelling shows that degree day factors vary with summer mean temperature surface albedo and turbulence but there is only evidence of large positive degree day factors at lower temperatures and with low albedo 0 3 the greatest effect of albedo variations 0 3 0 7 is at lower temperatures while variations in turbulence have greater effect at higher temperatures current models may underestimate runoff from the greenland ice sheet by several tenths because they use a degree day factor for melting ice that is too small for the colder parts of the ice sheet i e the upper ablation area and the northerly margin

dynamical processes involved in the retreat of marine ice sheets marine ice sheets with mechanics described by the shallow ice approximation by definition do not couple mechanically with the shelf such ice sheets are known to have neutral equilibria we consider the implications of this for their dynamics and in particular for mechanisms which promote marine ice sheet retreat the removal of ice shelf buttressing leading to enhanced flow in grounded ice is discounted as a significant influence on mechanical grounds sea level rise leading to reduced effective pressures under ice streams is shown to be a feasible mechanism for producing postglacial west antarctic ice sheet retreat but is inconsistent with borehole evidence warming thins the ice sheet by reducing the average viscosity but does not lead to grounding line retreat internal oscillations either specified or generated via a macayeal payne thermal mechanism promote migration this is a noise induced drift phenomenon stemming from the neutral equilibrium property of marine ice sheets this migration occurs at quite slow rates but these are sufficiently large to have possibly played a role in the dynamics of the west antarctic ice sheet after the glacial maximum numerical experiments suggest that it is generally true that while significant changes in thickness can be caused by spatially uniform changes spatial variability coupled with dynamical variability is needed to cause margin movement

interpreting ancient ice in a shallow ice core from the south yamato antarctica blue ice area using flow modeling and compositional matching to deep ice cores 1 we explore methods of dating a 101 m ice core from a bare ice ablation area in the yamato mountains dronning maud land east antarctica there are two unknowns the age of the ice at the surface and the age spanned by the core the ice crystal growth rate was used to estimate the age span of the core at about 5 kyr co2 ch4 and n2o data on the core were compared with well dated records from deep cores leading to two plausible matches both within isotope stage c detailed comparison of high resolution dep records from this core and the dome fuji core support the 55 61 kyr bp fit best oxygen isotope values in the core were then used to constrain the source elevation of the snow in the core and hence the velocities in a simple flow line model we inverted the ice core surface age age span and origin site and their confidence intervals in a sensitivity study of flow model parameter space the flow line model predicts good matches to the core by reducing glacial flow rates to 70 of present day accumulation rates by 45 with 10 confidence intervals the modeled surface age for the whole meteorite field yields maximum surface ages of about 90 kyr which is consistent with known but poorly constrained tephra dating meteorite terrestrial ages and the frequency of meteorite discoveries this approach can be used quite generally to link deep ice cores to surface outcrops on blue ice fields

multi track extraction of two dimensional surface velocity by the combined use of differential and multiple aperture insar in the amery ice shelf east antarctica abstract glaciers and ice streams drain the ice from the ice sheets to the ice shelves and contribute to global sea level changes therefore ice velocity is an essential parameter for the assessment of mass balance in this paper we propose an approach for the multi track extraction of two dimensional ice surface velocity by the combined use of multiple aperture interferometry mai and differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry dinsar the azimuth and ground range ice movements of each individual track are first estimated by the use of mai and dinsar respectively a seamless two dimensional ice velocity map is then achieved by calibration and mosaicking of the estimated velocity of the multi temporal and multi track measurements over a large area finally the dynamic behavior of the amery ice shelf is analyzed by formulating a long term series of ice flow velocities consisting of historical surface velocities 1968 1990 the estimated surface velocity by the proposed method with ers 1 2 data 1996 existing surface velocity products such as the radarsat 1 antarctic mapping project ramp velocities 1997 2000 and rignot s results 2007 2010 as well as the estimated velocities obtained by the use of the offset tracking method from landsat 8 images 2013 2014 the results show that the estimated velocity obtained by the use of the proposed method is superior to the other methods and the long term series of ice velocity measurements shows that the ice velocity in the amery ice shelf has hardly changed over the past 45 years 1968 2014 we conclude that the ice flow velocity of the amery ice shelf has showed a slight deceleration over the past 45 years

bathymetry of the amundsen sea continental shelf implications for geology oceanography and glaciology the amundsen sea continental shelf is one of the most remote areas of coastal antarctica and was relatively unexplored until the late 1980s over the last two decades increased oceanographic and geological interest has led to several cruises that resulted in sufficient bathymetric data to compile a fairly detailed regional map of the amundsen continental shelf we have combined available multibeam and single beam bathymetry data from various sources and created a new regional bathymetry of the amundsen sea continental shelf and margin deep trough systems that dominate the inner shelf are aligned with present glaciers and separated by shallower ridges shaped by paleo ice streams these features merge into a small number of broader troughs on the middle shelf and shoal seaward they now serve as conduits and reservoirs for relatively warm circumpolar deep water this new compilation is a major improvement over previously available regional maps and should aid the numerical modeling of ocean circulation the reconstructions of paleo ice streams and the refinement of ice sheet models

tributaries of west antarctic ice streams revealed by radarsat interferometry interferometric radarsat data are used to map ice motion in the source areas of four west antarctic ice streams the data reveal that tributaries coincident with subglacial valleys provide a spatially extensive transition between slow inland flow and rapid ice stream flow and that adjacent ice streams draw from shared source regions two tributaries flow into the stagnant ice stream c creating an extensive region that is thickening at an average rate of 0 49 meters per year this is one of the largest rates of thickening ever reported in antarctica

ice stream retreat following the lgm and onset of the west greenland current in uummannaq trough west greenland the deglacial history and oceanography of uummannaq trough central west greenland continental shelf was investigated using foraminiferal sedimentological and bathymetric records together with a radiocarbon chronology providing a timeline for the retreat of glacial ice after the last glacial maximum lgm to map ice stream retreat data were collected from cores from the outer jr175 vc45 and jr175 vc43 and inner jr175 vc42 uummannaq trough a large ice stream fed by confluent glaciers draining the interior of the greenland ice sheet extended across the outer shelf during the lgm and was in retreat by 15 0 cal kyr bp foraminiferal data indicate that the warm west greenland current wgc was established prior to 14 0 cal kyr bp which is the hitherto earliest record of atlantic water found on the west greenland shelf for each of the cores foraminifera indicate that ice sheet retreat was followed quickly by incursion of the wgc suggesting that the warm water may have enhanced ice retreat prior to the younger dryas cold event the radiocarbon chronology indicates that the ice sheet retreated to the mid shelf where it subsequently stabilised and formed a large grounding zone wedge gzw after the younger dryas around 11 5 cal kyr bp the ice retreated rapidly from the gzw and into the fjords

west antarctic ice streams draining into the ross ice shelf configuration and mass balance extensive airborne radar soundings closely tied to accurately located ground stations made over a portion of the west antarctic inland ice sheet and the ross ice shelf have enabled us to map the boundaries of the ice streams and their flow bands on the ross ice shelf the surfaces of the active ice streams a and b are heavily crevassed but there are no visible crevasses on ice stream c however the existence of numerous crevasses at a depth of about 35 m implies that ice stream c ceased to be active about 250 years ago there is a complex zone at the head of ice stream b that suggests that ice stream b is currently widening and advancing toward the interior of the ice sheet the grounding lines between the inland ice and the ice shelf were mapped from the surface elevations using the requirement of hydrostatic balance and the character of the radar echoes the inland ice is more extensive than previously mapped and includes a large weakly grounded area downstream of ice streams a and b where the surface elevations are barely above hydrostatic equilibrium crary ice rise extends 70 km upstream of the previously mapped position to relate surface elevation data from satellite observations to sea level three geoidal models were tested we conclude that the gem 10c model is the best of the three for this section of antarctica a new map of surface elevation shows deep marginal troughs and longitudinal ridges along ice streams a and b but not on ice stream c whose surface contours show signs of stagnation ice stream c shows a strongly positive and ice stream b a significantly negative net balance rate ice streams a and d also show a significantly negative net flux whereas ice streams e and f do not the overall net balance of this part of the west antarctic inland ice is suggestively negative 23 15 km3 yr 1 from the measured flux into the ross ice shelf and previous measurements we calculate an average basal melt rate from beneath the ice shelf of 0 12 0 03 m yr 1

northern larsen ice shelf antarctica further retreat after collapse changes of larsen ice shelf antarctica and the surrounding glaciers after its collapse in 1995 were investigated using satellite radar imagery with emphasis onchanges in the glaciers which previously nourished the ice shelf north of seal nunataks the large glaciers retreated several kilometres inland of the previousgrounding line the velocity field of drygalski glacier the largest glacier in this area was mapped by means of interferograms derived from pairs of ers syntheticaperture radar images from 1995 and 1999 the main part of the glacier showed significant acceleration of flow over these 4 years with an increase of veocity upto three fold at the terminus similar accelerations were observed by means of interferometry on several other grounded glaciers suggesting that the removal ofice shelves could lead to an effect on eustatic sea level for larsen b the northernmost surviving part of larsen ice shelf the retreat of the ice front to october2000 is documented

simulated global mean sea level changes over the last half millennium simulations of the last 500 yr carried out using the third hadley centre coupled ocean atmosphere gcm hadcm3 with anthropogenic and natural solar and volcanic forcings have been analyzed globalmean surface temperature change during the twentieth century is well reproduced simulated contributions to global mean sea level rise during recent decades due to thermal expansion the largest term and to mass loss from glaciers and ice caps agree within uncertainties with observational estimates of these terms but their sum falls short of the observed rate of sea level rise this discrepancy has been discussed by previous authors a completely satisfactory explanation of twentieth century sea level rise is lacking the model suggests that the apparent onset of sea level rise and glacier retreat during the first part of the nineteenth century was due to natural forcing the rate of sea level rise was larger during the twentieth century than during the previous centuries because of anthropogenic forcing but decreasing natural forcing during the second half of the twentieth century tended to offset the anthropogenic acceleration in the rate volcanic eruptions cause rapid falls in sea level followed by recovery over several decades the model shows substantially less decadal variability in sea level and its thermal expansion component than twentiethcentury observations indicate either because it does not generate sufficient ocean internal variability or because the observational analyses overestimate the variability

contribution to the glaciology of northern greenland from satellite radar interferometry interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data from the ers 1 and ers 2 satellites are used to measure the surface velocity topography and grounding line position of the major outlet glaciers in the northern sector of the greenland ice sheet the mass output of the glaciers at and above the grounding line is determined and compared with the mass input we find that the grounding line output is approximately in balance with the input except for the three largest glaciers for which the mass loss is 4 3 km3 ice year 1 or 11 8 of the mass input along the coast we detect a systematic retreat of the grounding lines between 1992 and 1996 with insar which implies that the outlet glaciers are thinning the inferred coastal thinning is too large to be explained by a few warm summers glacier thinning must be of dynamic origin that is caused by spatial and temporal changes in ice velocity iceberg production from the glaciers is uncharacteristically low it accounts for only 8 of the ice discharge to the ocean about 55 of the ice is lost through basal melting 5 8 m ice year 1 on average from the underside of the floating glacier tongues that are in contact with warm ocean waters mass losses are highest in the first 10 km of floating ice where ice reaches the greatest depths and basal melting is 3 times larger than on average only a small increase in basal melting would suffice to disintegrate the floating glacier tongues copyright 2001 by the american geophysical union

ice dynamic conditions across the grounding zone ekstromisen east antarctica a detailed investigation was performed of ice dynamic conditions across the southern grounding zone of ekstroem ice shelf at the mouth of a regular eastantarctic outlet glacier not characterized by ice streaming accurate field measurements along a profile of 20 km length served as input in a two dimensionalnumerical ice flow model in order to calculate the variation of stress strain rate and velocity components with depth the model results pointed to a sharptransition between the mechanics of grounded and floating ice and the occurrence of a narrow transition zone in between of only a few km width shearing inhorizontal planes most of it at the base was found to be the dominant flow mechanism in grounded ice this part was also characterized by a distinctsuccession of surface undulations which are in turn controlled by variations in resistive stresses at the bottom the associated phase shift between drivingstress and basal drag was found to be accomodated by differential longitudinal pushes and pulls at the base the flow in the upper half of the profile on theother hand was extensive everywhere the adjacent ice shelf was characterized by small stress and velocity gradients in both the vertical and horizontaldirections of the vertical section and little deformation a calculated longitudinal deviatoric normal stress of only a tenth of the value required for freelyfloating ice shelves is indicative of a large backstress originating from friction along the sidewalls of the narrow embayment

retention of greenland runoff by refreezing implications for projected future sea level change melting produced at the surface of subfreezing permeable firn does not freely percolate but instead refreezes near its point of origin raising the firn temperature and decreasing the pore space if sufficient meltwater is introduced the firn will warm to 0 c and subsequent water will fill the remaining pore space without freezing only after the residual water content of the firn is exceeded will water flow through the firn and possibly escape as runoff this process prevents summer melt on high arctic glaciers and ice caps from escaping in its entirety and it must be accounted for in modeling glacier runoff on the basis of surface energy balance a model is presented here which describes in a simple way the transient process of infiltration refreezing and runoff in a future warming climate the model is applied to greenland for which predictions of runoff induced sea level rise that do not consider the refreezing process could be as much as 5 0 cm too high over 150 years

elevation change of the southern greenland ice sheet from 1978 to 1988 interpretation the spatial pattern of elevation change estimates derived from satellite radar altimeter data for the period from 1978 to 1988 for the southern greenland ice sheet is examined as reported previously the results from 12 ice cores widely distributed in the study area indicate that much of the spatial variability in the elevation change estimates can be explained by temporal variations in accumulation most notably the areas of largest thickening and thinning east and west of the ice divide around 66 n recently experienced substantial decadal fluctuations in accumulation sufficient to explain the observed elevation change rates that span the range of 24 cm yr 1 elevation change estimates in the nw of the study area around the 2000 m elevation contour were found to be inconsistent with both short and long term changes in accumulation fluctuations examination of stratigraphy in several shallow ice cores in the nw indicates that significant melting took place in 1977 and 1978 and this was followed by many years of very little melt activity this likely resulted in a significant downward bias in the 1978 1988 elevation change estimates in the nw comparison of measured surface velocities with those calculated assuming steady state balance show very good agreement overall but there are many instances in the southeast where the steady state velocities are significantly smaller than measured surface velocities we cannot rule out the possibility that increased ice flow in lower elevation outlet glaciers has migrated farther upstream thereby causing negative long term mass imbalance in southeast greenland

analysis of velocity field mass balance and basal melt of the lambert glacier amery ice shelf system by incorporating radarsat sar interferometry and icesat laser altimetry measurements 1 by incorporating recently available remote sensing data we investigated the mass balance for all individual tributary glacial basins of the lambert glacier amery ice shelf system east antarctica on the basis of the ice flow information derived from sar interferometry and icesat laser altimetry we have determined the spatial configuration of eight tributary drainage basins of the lambert amery glacial system by combining the coherence information from sar interferometry and the texture information from sar and modis images we have interpreted and refined the grounding line position we calculated ice volume flux of each tributary glacial basin based on the ice velocity field derived from radarsat three pass interferometry together with ice thickness data interpolated from australian and russian airborne radio echo sounding res surveys and inferred from icesat laser altimetry data our analysis reveals that three tributary basins have a significant net positive imbalance while five other subbasins are slightly positive or close to zero balance overall in contrast to previous studies we find that the grounded ice in lambert glacier amery ice shelf system has a positive mass imbalance of 22 9 4 4 gt a 1 the net basal melting for the entire amery ice shelf is estimated to be 27 0 7 0 gt a 1 the melting rate decreases rapidly from the grounding zone to the ice shelf front significant basal refreezing is detected in the downstream section of the ice shelf the mass balance estimates for both the grounded ice sheet and the ice shelf mass differ substantially from other recent estimates

ice sheets on the move are today s polar ice sheets in danger of collapse even with climate warming increases in snowfall should compensate for additional melting of the ice sheets but ice flow speeds can change abruptly by orders of magnitude in his perspective raymond 1 reviews recent advances toward understanding the dynamics of ice sheets spatial connections in basal lubrication help to explain how speed changes can spread over large areas from localized triggers but it remains unclear how quickly flow acceleration can be initiated at low elevation and spread deep into the interiors of ice sheets 1 http www sciencemag org cgi content full 298 5601 2147

surface melt induced acceleration of greenland ice sheet flow ice flow at a location in the equilibrium zone of the west central greenland ice sheet accelerates above the midwinter average rate during periods of summer melting the near coincidence of the ice acceleration with the duration of surface melting followed by deceleration after the melting ceases indicates that glacial sliding is enhanced by rapid migration of surface meltwater to the ice bedrock interface interannual variations in the ice acceleration are correlated with variations in the intensity of the surface melting with larger increases accompanying higher amounts of summer melting the indicated coupling between surface melting and ice sheet flow provides a mechanism for rapid large scale dynamic responses of ice sheets to climate warming

tabular iceberg collisions within the coastal regime during 2000 07 five giant icebergs b15a b15j b15k c16 and c25 adrift in the south western ross sea antarctica were instrumented with global positioning system gps receivers and other instruments to monitor their behavior in the near coastal environment the measurements show that collision processes can strongly influence iceberg behavior and delay their progress in drifting to the open ocean collisions appear to have been a dominant control on the movement of b15a the largest of the icebergs during the 4 year period it gyrated within the limited confines of ross island the fixed ross ice shelf and grounded c16 iceberg interactions in the near coastal regime are largely driven by ocean tidal effects which determine the magnitude of forces generated during collision and break up events estimates of forces derived from the observed drift trajectories during the iceberg collision induced calving of iceberg c19 from the ross ice shelf during the iceberg induced break off of the tip of the drygalski ice tongue and the break up of b15a provide a crude estimate of the stress scale involved in iceberg calving considering the total area the vertical face of new rifts created in the calving or break up process and not accounting for local stress amplification near rift tips this estimated stress scale is 10 4 pa

observation and analysis of ice flow in the largest greenland ice stream we have applied satellite radar interferometry methods to map the velocity field of the recently discovered northeast greenland ice stream we have used these data in conjunction with ice thickness and accumulation data to determine that the ice stream is in balance within the measurement errors we used control methods to invert a finite element model of ice sheet flow constrained by the data to infer the ice stream s basal shear stress distribution our results reveal that flow in a section of the downstream end has much in common with the streaming flow of the ross ice streams of west antarctica e g a weak bed and fast flow in the presence of low driving stresses for several hundred kilometers along the middle of the ice stream the basal shear stress balances the driving stress in the upstream area where the ice stream is first visible in the velocity data the bed appears to be weak which may contribute to the initiation of the ice stream

antarctic elevation change from 1992 to 1996 satellite radar altimeter measurements show that the average elevation of the antarctic ice sheet interior fell by 0 9 0 5 centimeters per year from 1992 to 1996 if the variability of snowfall observed in antarctic ice cores is allowed for the mass imbalance of the interior this century is only 0 06 0 08 of the mean mass accumulation rate

greenland ice sheet high elevation balance and peripheral thinning aircraft laser altimeter surveys over northern greenland in 1994 and 1999 have been coupled with previously reported data from southern greenland to analyze the recent mass balance of the greenland ice sheet above 2000 meters elevation the ice sheet is in balance on average but has some regions of local thickening or thinning thinning predominates at lower elevations with rates exceeding 1 meter per year close to the coast interpolation of our results between flight lines indicates a net loss of about 51 cubic kilometers of ice per year from the entire ice sheet sufficient to raise sea level by 0 13 millimeter per year approximately 7 of the observed rise

changes in greenland ice sheet elevation attributed primarily to snow accumulation variability the response of grounded ice sheets to a changing climate critically influences possible future changes in sea level recent satellite surveys over southern greenland show little overall elevation change at higher elevations but large spatial variability using satellite studies alone it is not possible to determine the geophysical processes responsible for the observed elevation changes and to decide if recent rates of change exceed the natural variability here we derive changes in ice sheet elevation in southern greenland for the years 1978 88 using a physically based model of firn densification and records of annual snow accumulation reconstructed from 12 ice cores at high elevation our patterns of accumulation driven elevation change agree closely with contemporaneous satellite measurements of ice sheet elevation change and we therefore attribute the changes observed in 1978 88 to variability in snow accumulation similar analyses of longer ice core records show that in this decade the greenland ice sheet exhibited typical variability at high elevations well within the long term natural variability our results indicate that a better understanding of ice sheet mass changes will require long term measurements of both surface elevation and snow accumulation

rapid bottom melting widespread near antarctic ice sheet grounding lines as continental ice from antarctica reaches the grounding line and begins to float its underside melts into the ocean results obtained with satellite radar interferometry reveal that bottom melt rates experienced by large outlet glaciers near their grounding lines are far higher than generally assumed the melting rate is positively correlated with thermal forcing increasing by 1 meter per year for each 0 1 c rise in ocean temperature where deep water has direct access to grounding lines glaciers and ice shelves are vulnerable to ongoing increases in ocean temperature

mass balance of polar ice sheets recent advances in the determination of the mass balance of polar ice sheets show that the greenland ice sheet is losing mass by near coastal thinning and that the west antarctic ice sheet with thickening in the west and thinning in the north is probably thinning overall the mass imbalance of the east antarctic ice sheet is likely to be small but even its sign cannot yet be determined large sectors of ice in southeast greenland the amundsen sea embayment of west antarctica and the antarctic peninsula are changing quite rapidly as a result of processes not yet understood

bedmap a new ice thickness and subglacial topographic model of antarctica measurements of ice thickness on the antarctic ice sheet collected during surveys undertaken over the past 50 years have been brought together into a single database from these data a seamless suite of digital topographic models have been compiled for antarctica and its surrounding ocean this includes grids of ice sheet thickness over the grounded ice sheet and ice shelves water column thickness beneath the floating ice shelves bed elevation beneath the grounded ice sheet and bathymetry to 60 s including the sub ice shelf cavities these grids are consistent with a recent high resolution surface elevation model of antarctica while the digital models have a nominal spatial resolution of 5 km such high resolution is justified by the original data density only over a few parts of the ice sheet the suite does however provide an unparalleled vision of the geosphere beneath the ice sheet and a more reliable basis for ice sheet modeling than earlier maps the total volume of the antarctic ice sheet calculated from the bedmap grid is 25 4 million km3 and the total sea level equivalent derived from the amount of ice contained within the grounded ice sheet is 57 m comprising 52 m from the east antarctic ice sheet and 5 m from the west antarctic ice sheet slightly less than earlier estimates the gridded data sets can be obtained from the authors

evidence for rapid retreat and mass loss of thwaites glacier west antarctica thwaites glacier the second largest ice stream in west antarctica drains an area of 166 500 2000 km2 which accumulates 55 5 gt a 1 or 60 6 km3 ice a 1 into the amundsen sea unrestrained by an ice shelf using interferometric synthetic aperture radar insar data collected by the european remote sensing satellites ers 1 and 2 in 1996 an output flux of 71 7 gt a 1 or 77 8 km3 ice a 1 is estimated at the grounding line where ice thickness is deduced from hydrostatic equilibrium a similar flux 70 7 gt a 1 or 76 8 km3 ice a 1 is obtained at a gate located 20 km upstream where ice thickness was measured in 1978 by ice sounding radar total accumulation in between the two gates is 1 6 gt a 1 or 1 8 km3 ice a 1 ice discharge therefore exceeds mass accumulation by 30 15 and thwaites glacier must be thinning and retreating at present the insar data show that the glacier floating ice tongue exerts no back pressure on the inland ice calves into tabular icebergs along a significant fraction of its grounding line and has a grounding line thickness which exceeds a prior calculated limit for stability glacier thinning is confirmed at the coast by the detection of a 1 4 0 2 km retreat of its grounding line between 1992 and 1996 with insar which implies 3 2 0 6 m ice a 1 thinning at the glacier center and less near the sides these results complement the decimeter scale annual surface lowering observed with satellite radar altimetry several hundred km inland of the grounding line the magnitude of ice thinning estimated at the coast however rules out temporal changes in accumulation as the explanation for surface lowering ice thinning must be due to changes in ice flow

inland thinning of pine island glacier west antarctica the pine island glacier pig transports 69 cubic kilometers of ice each year from 10 of the west antarctic ice sheet wais it is possible that a retreat of the pig may accelerate ice discharge from the wais interior satellite altimetry and interferometry show that the grounded pig thinned by up to 1 6 meters per year between 1992 and 1999 affecting 150 kilometers of the inland glacier the thinning cannot be explained by short term variability in accumulation and must result from glacier dynamics

mass balance of higher elevation parts of the greenland ice sheet satellite radar and aircraft laser altimeter data and a volume budget comparison of total snow accumulation with total ice discharge give three independent estimates of the recent mass balance of parts of the greenland ice sheet above 2000 m elevation results show the entire region on average to be in balance to within 10 mm yr 1 with very low rates of regional thickness change dh dt in the northeast but high rates with large spatial variability in the south only the volume budget estimates show significant thinning in the northwest but thinning in this area is also inferred from local measurements of ice vertical velocities down boreholes south of latitude 68 n there has been rapid thickening west of the ice divide with equally rapid thinning in the southeast but with large differences between the three estimates of dh dt throughout this region the radar data apply to the period 1978 1988 the laser data are for 1993 1994 1998 1999 and the volume budget calculations represent conditions over at least the last few decades consequently many of the differences between results could be caused by temporal changes particularly in snow accumulation rates that occurred since the 1970s however taken with other information our results suggest long term thickening in the southwest and possibly quite recent onset of rapid thinning in the southeast

accelerated sea level rise from west antarctica recent aircraft and satellite laser altimeter surveys of the amundsen sea sector of west antarctica show that local glaciers are discharging about 250 cubic kilometers of ice per year to the ocean almost 60 more than is accumulated within their catchment basins this discharge is sufficient to raise sea level by more than 0 2 millimeters per year glacier thinning rates near the coast during 2002 2003 are much larger than those observed during the 1990s most of these glaciers flow into floating ice shelves over bedrock up to hundreds of meters deeper than previous estimates providing exit routes for ice from further inland if ice sheet collapse is under way

ice bed coupling beneath and beyond ice streams byrd glacier antarctica 1 ice sheet thickness is determined mainly by the strength of ice bed coupling that controls holistic transitions from slow sheet flow to fast streamflow to buttressing shelf flow byrd glacier has the largest ice drainage system in antarctica and is the fastest ice stream entering ross ice shelf in 2004 two large subglacial lakes at the head of byrd glacier suddenly drained and increased the terminal ice velocity of byrd glacier from 820 m yr 1 to 900 m yr 1 this resulted in partial ice bed recoupling above the lakes and partial decoupling along byrd glacier an attempt to quantify this behavior is made using flowband and flowline models in which the controlling variable for ice height above the bed is the floating fraction of ice along the flowband and flowline changes in before and after drainage are obtained from available data but more reliable data in the map plane are required before byrd glacier can be modeled adequately a holistic sliding velocity is derived that depends on with contributions from ice shearing over coupled beds and ice stretching over uncoupled beds as is done in state of the art sliding theories

the accuracy of digital elevation models of the antarctic continent abstract the accuracy of two widely used digital elevation models of antarctica was assessed using data from the geoscience laser altimeter system onboard icesat the digital elevation models were derived from satellite radar altimeter and terrestrial data sets the first termed jlb97 was produced predominantly from ers 1 data while the second termed rampv2 included other sources of data in areas of high relief and poor coverage by ers 1 the accuracy of the models was examined as a function of surface slope and original data source large errors in excess of 100 m were ubiquitous in both models in areas where terrestrially derived elevation data had been used but were more extensive in rampv2 elsewhere the systematic error bias was found to be a monotonic function of slope for jlb97 with a more complex less predictable bias for rampv2 the magnitude of the global slope dependent bias ranged from less than a metre to slightly over 10 m but with much larger regional deviations the random error ranged from about 1 m to over 100 m depending on the dem and slope the random error was consistently over a factor two larger for rampv2 compared to jlb97

antarctic regional ice loss rates from grace abstract using recent improved time variable gravity solutions from the gravity recovery and climate experiment grace we estimate rates of antarctic ice mass change for the period january 2003 through september 2006 combined improvements in data and filtering techniques allow observation of ice loss in the northern antarctic peninsula ap and along the coast of the west and central amundsen sea embayment ase in west antarctica there is also evidence of ice loss along the coast near the stancomb wills sta and jutulstraumen jut glaciers in queen maud land apparent rates are adjusted for influences of limited spatial resolution filtering and estimated postglacial rebound pgr to obtain ice loss rates for the northern ap coastal ase and sta jut of 28 8 7 9 81 17 and 16 7 9 7 km3 yr respectively this is the first estimate for the northern ap from satellite gravity data the ase estimate 81 17 km3 yr is consistent with a previous value 77 14 km3 yr using an earlier grace data release these results indicate significant improvement in grace data quality increased spatial resolution and applicability of grace data to a wider class of problems than previously possible

widespread acceleration of tidewater glaciers on the antarctic peninsula over the last half century the antarctic peninsula ap has been among the most rapidly warming regions on earth this has led to increased summer snowmelt loss of ice shelves and retreat of 87 of marine and tidewater glacier fronts tidewater glacier flow is sensitive to changes in basal water supply and to thinning of the terminus and faster flow leads directly to sea level rise the flow rates of most ap tidewater glaciers have never been measured however and hence their dynamic response to the recent changes is unknown we present repeated flow rate measurements from over 300 glaciers on the ap west coast through nine summers from 1992 to 2005 we show that the flow rate increased by similar to 12 on average and that this trend is greater than the seasonal variability in flow rate we attribute this widespread acceleration trend not to meltwater enhanced lubrication or increased snowfall but to a dynamic response to frontal thinning we estimate that as a result the annual sea level contribution from this region has increased by 0 047 0 011 mm between 1993 and 2003 this contribution together with previous studies that assessed increased runoff from the area and acceleration of glaciers resulting from the removal of ice shelves implies a combined ap contribution of 0 16 0 06 mm yr 1 this is comparable to the contribution from alaskan glaciers and combined with estimated mass loss from west antarctica is probably large enough to outweigh mass gains in east antarctica and to make the total antarctic sea level contribution positive

widespread complex flow in the interior of the antarctic ice sheet it has been suggested that as much as 90 of the discharge from the antarctic ice sheet is drained through a small number of fast moving ice streams and outlet glaciers fed by relatively stable and inactive catchment areas here evidence obtained from balance velocity estimates suggests that each major drainage basin is fed by complex systems of tributaries that penetrate up to 1000 kilometers from the grounding line into the interior of the ice sheet this finding has important consequences for the modeled or estimated dynamic response time of past and present ice sheets to climate forcing

future of the west antarctic ice sheet a collapse of the antarctic ice sheets would raise the sea level by 5 meters and depending on how quickly it occurred would pose an enormous threat to global economy and ecology how stable are these volumes of ice in his perspective bindschadler discusses recent efforts to model the behavior of the west antarctic ice sheet on the basis of data on past ice sheet movement including results reported in the same issue by wingham et al consideration of these past data suggests that the ice sheets will remain stable for the next 4000 to 7000 years but an accurate assessment awaits more data on ice sheet history and better understanding of ice sheet dynamics

changes in the west antarctic ice sheet the portion of the west antarctic ice sheet that flows into the ross sea is thinning in some places and thickening in others these changes are not caused by any current climatic change but by the combination of a delayed response to the end of the last global glacial cycle and an internal instability the near future impact of the ice sheet on global sea level is largely due to processes internal to the movement of the ice sheet and not so much to the threat of a possible greenhouse warming thus the near term future of the ice sheet is already determined however too little of the ice sheet has been surveyed to predict its overall future behavior

acceleration of pine island and thwaites glaciers west antarctica recent satellite investigations revealed that in the 1990s the grounding line of pine island and thwaites glaciers west antarctica retreated several km the ice surface on the interior of the basins lowered 10 cm a 1 and pine island glacier thinned 1 6 m a 1 these observations however were not sufficient to determine the cause of the changes here we present satellite radar interferometry data that show the thinning and retreat of pine island glacier are caused by an acceleration of ice flow of about 18 2 in 8 years thwaites glacier maintained a nearly constant flow regime at its center but widened along the sides and increased its 30 15 mass deficit by another 4 in 4 years the combined mass loss from both glaciers if correct contributes an estimated 0 08 0 03 mm a 1 global sea level rise in 2000

distributions and stable carbon isotopic compositions of biomarkers in torbanites from different palaeogeographical locations abstract the relative distributions and stable carbon isotopic compositions of certain aliphatic and aromatic biomarkers from 11 botryococcus braunii rich torbanites from scotland south africa and australia covering the late carboniferous to late permian were investigated the data was scrutinised for any evidence of molecular features which may be characteristic of palaeogeography the torbanites studied were selected to cover a range of age and palaeoclimatic conditions e g permian and late carboniferous when gondwana was covered by an extensive ice sheet the late permian when the climate warmed from glacial to cool to temperate and the carboniferous when laurasia was located within the equatorial zone all torbanites are composed of abundant n alkanes and novel macrocyclic alkanes which based on similar 13c values are ascribed a common origin all samples are also characterised by a high cyanobacterial input as indicated by abundant hopanoids other biomarker distributions and stable carbon isotopic compositional differences separated the torbanites into three groups which also correlate to three different palaeogeographical palaeoclimatic precincts i group a southern africa and eastern australia temi torbanites which are characterised by a high relative abundance of cyanobacterial and methylotrophic hopanoids abundant branched hydrocarbons and 13c enriched homologous series of monomethylakanes ii group b eastern australia newnes and glen davis torbanites contain relatively high amounts of drimanes and abundant 13c enriched homologous series of monomethylakanes and iii group c scottish torbanites torbane hill and westfield contain high relative amounts of cyanobacterial hopanoids methylotrophic hopanoids and abundant branched aliphatics but no 13c enriched homologous series of monomethylakanes

grounding line retreat of totten glacier east antarctica 1996 to 2013 2015 american geophysical union all rights reserved totten glacier east antarctica a glacier that holds a 3 9 m sea level change equivalent has thinned and lost mass for decades we map its grounding line positions in 1996 and 2013 using differential radar interferometry insar data and develop precise high resolution topographies of its ice surface and ice draft using nasa operation icebridge data insar data and a mass conservation method we detect a 1 to 3 km retreat of the grounding line in 17 years the retreat is asymmetrical along a two lobe pattern where ice is only grounded a few 10 m above sea level or ice plain which may unground further with only modest amounts of ice thinning the pattern of retreat indicates ice thinning of 12 m in 17 years or 0 7 0 1 m yr at the grounding line on average sustained thinning will cause further grounding line retreat but may not be conducive to a marine instability key points grounding line of totten glacier is retreating not as fast as west antarctica retreat pattern explained by the newly inferred bed geometry if ice thinning maintains bed geometry conducive to further retreat

the link between climate warming and break up of ice shelves in the antarctic peninsula a review of in situ and remote sensing data covering the ice shelves of the antarctic peninsula provides a series of characteristics closely associated with rapid shelf retreat deeply embayed ice fronts calving of myriad small elongate bergs in punctuated events increasing flow speed and the presence of melt ponds on the ice shelf surface in the vicinity of the break ups as climate has warmed in the antarctic peninsula region melt season duration and the extent of ponding have increased most break up events have occurred during longer melt seasons suggesting that meltwater itself not just warming is responsible regions that show melting without pond formation are relatively unchanged melt ponds thus appear to be a robust harbinger of ice shelf retreat we use these observations to guide a model of ice shelf flow and the effects of meltwater crevasses present in a region of surface ponding will likely fill to the brim with water we hypothesize building on weertman 1973 hughes 1983 and van der veen 1998 that crevasse propagation by meltwater is the main mechanism by which ice shelves weaken and retreat a thermodynamic finite element model is used to evaluate ice flow and the strain field and simple extensions of this model are used to investigate crack propagation by meltwater the model results support the hypothesis