Publication Date:
2012-12-01
Description:
We combined an ensemble of satellite altimetry, interferometry, and gravimetry data sets using common geographical regions, time intervals, and models of surface mass balance and glacial isostatic adjustment to estimate the mass balance of Earth's polar ice sheets. We find that there is good agreement between different satellite methods--especially in Greenland and West Antarctica--and that combining satellite data sets leads to greater certainty. Between 1992 and 2011, the ice sheets of Greenland, East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Peninsula changed in mass by -142 +/- 49, +14 +/- 43, -65 +/- 26, and -20 +/- 14 gigatonnes year(-1), respectively. Since 1992, the polar ice sheets have contributed, on average, 0.59 +/- 0.20 millimeter year(-1) to the rate of global sea-level rise.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Shepherd, Andrew -- Ivins, Erik R -- A, Geruo -- Barletta, Valentina R -- Bentley, Mike J -- Bettadpur, Srinivas -- Briggs, Kate H -- Bromwich, David H -- Forsberg, Rene -- Galin, Natalia -- Horwath, Martin -- Jacobs, Stan -- Joughin, Ian -- King, Matt A -- Lenaerts, Jan T M -- Li, Jilu -- Ligtenberg, Stefan R M -- Luckman, Adrian -- Luthcke, Scott B -- McMillan, Malcolm -- Meister, Rakia -- Milne, Glenn -- Mouginot, Jeremie -- Muir, Alan -- Nicolas, Julien P -- Paden, John -- Payne, Antony J -- Pritchard, Hamish -- Rignot, Eric -- Rott, Helmut -- Sorensen, Louise Sandberg -- Scambos, Ted A -- Scheuchl, Bernd -- Schrama, Ernst J O -- Smith, Ben -- Sundal, Aud V -- van Angelen, Jan H -- van de Berg, Willem J -- van den Broeke, Michiel R -- Vaughan, David G -- Velicogna, Isabella -- Wahr, John -- Whitehouse, Pippa L -- Wingham, Duncan J -- Yi, Donghui -- Young, Duncan -- Zwally, H Jay -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2012 Nov 30;338(6111):1183-9. doi: 10.1126/science.1228102.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK. ashepherd@leeds.ac.uk〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23197528" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Antarctic Regions
;
*Climate Change
;
Geographic Information Systems
;
Greenland
;
*Ice Cover
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
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