Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Originally published in Science Express on 20 October 2005
Science 11 November 2005:
Vol. 310. no. 5750, pp. 1013 - 1016
DOI: 10.1126/science.1115356
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Reports

Recent Ice-Sheet Growth in the Interior of Greenland

Ola M. Johannessen,1,2* Kirill Khvorostovsky,3 Martin W. Miles,4,5 Leonid P. Bobylev3

A continuous data set of Greenland Ice Sheet altimeter height from European Remote Sensing satellites (ERS-1 and ERS-2), 1992 to 2003, has been analyzed. An increase of 6.4 ± 0.2 centimeters per year (cm/year) is found in the vast interior areas above 1500 meters, in contrast to previous reports of high-elevation balance. Below 1500 meters, the elevation-change rate is –2.0 ± 0.9 cm/year, in qualitative agreement with reported thinning in the ice-sheet margins. Averaged over the study area, the increase is 5.4 ± 0.2 cm/year, or ~60 cm over 11 years, or ~54 cm when corrected for isostatic uplift. Winter elevation changes are shown to be linked to the North Atlantic Oscillation.

1 Mohn-Sverdrup Center for Global Ocean Studies and Operational Oceanography, Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, Bergen, 5006, Norway.
2 Geophysical Institute, University of Bergen, 5007, Norway.
3 Nansen International Environmental and Remote Sensing Center, St. Petersburg, 197101, Russia.
4 Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, 5007, Norway.
5 Environmental Systems Analysis Research Center, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ola.johannessen{at}nersc.no

Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Progress in satellite remote sensing of ice sheets.
D.J. Quincey and A. Luckman (2009)
Progress in Physical Geography 33, 547-567
   Abstract »    PDF »
Inaugural Article: Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system.
T. M. Lenton, H. Held, E. Kriegler, J. W. Hall, W. Lucht, S. Rahmstorf, and H. J. Schellnhuber (2008)
PNAS 105, 1786-1793
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets.
A. Shepherd and D. Wingham (2007)
Science 315, 1529-1532
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Sea levels: change and variability during warm intervals.
R. Edwards (2006)
Progress in Physical Geography 30, 785-796
   PDF »
Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity Observations.
S. B. Luthcke, H. J. Zwally, W. Abdalati, D. D. Rowlands, R. D. Ray, R. S. Nerem, F. G. Lemoine, J. J. McCarthy, and D. S. Chinn (2006)
Science 314, 1286-1289
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Ice-sheet contributions to future sea-level change.
J.M Gregory and P Huybrechts (2006)
Phil Trans R Soc A 364, 1709-1732
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)