The Unquantified Mass Loss and Changes of Northern Hemisphere Marine-Terminating Glaciers

Abstract

Most of the glacier-caused sea level rise to date has been sourced from melt and icebergs from marine-terminating glaciers. Marine-terminating glaciers drain nearly all the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets and many polar ice caps, ice fields, and mountain glaciers. However, we previously did not know how much solid mass, or frontal ablation, was lost by these glaciers, a key component of glacier mass balance. This thesis quantifies the area change and mass loss of marine-terminating glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere from 2000 to 2020 by quantifying glacier retreat, advance, and frontal ablation. In total, the 1704 marine-terminating glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere lost an average of 389.7 ± 1.6 km² a⁻¹ of their terminus from 2000 to 2020, for a total of 7527 ± 31 km², with 123 glaciers ceasing to be marine-terminating over this period. Overall, 85.3% of glaciers retreated, 2.5% advanced, and the remaining 12.3% did not change outside of uncertainty limits. Frontal ablation of marine-terminating glaciers, not including the Greenland Ice Sheet, contributed an average of 44.47 ± 6.23 Gt a⁻¹ of ice to the ocean from 2000 to 2010, and 51.98 ± 4.62 Gt a⁻¹ from 2010 to 2020. Ice discharge from 2000 to 2020 was equivalent to 2.10 ± 0.22 mm of sea-level rise and comprised approximately 79% of frontal ablation, with the remainder from terminus retreat. In Greenland, frontal ablation totaled 522.00 ± 17.38 Gt a⁻¹ for 2000-2010 and 559.05 ± 12.59 Gt a⁻¹ for 2010-2020. Ice discharge comprised ~90% of frontal ablation during both periods, while volume loss due to terminus retreat comprised the remainder. In total, Greenland accounted for 90% of northern hemisphere frontal ablation from 2000 to 2020. When combined with climatic-basal mass balance estimates this allows for the first estimate of complete Northern Hemisphere glacier mass budgets, which shows that Arctic Russia, Greenland, and Svalbard have positive climatic-basal balances. For the first time, this thesis provides complete frontal ablation estimates for the entire Northern Hemisphere of 522.0 ± 17.4 Gt a⁻¹ for 2000-2010 and 559.1 ± 12.6 Gt a⁻¹ for 2010-2020.