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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
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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

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Recent Sea-Level Contributions of the Antarctic and Greenland Ice Sheets.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)