IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v611y2022i7937d10.1038_s41586-022-05301-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Extensive inland thinning and speed-up of Northeast Greenland Ice Stream

Author

Listed:
  • Shfaqat A. Khan

    (Technical University of Denmark)

  • Youngmin Choi

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Mathieu Morlighem

    (Dartmouth College
    University of California, Irvine)

  • Eric Rignot

    (University of California, Irvine)

  • Veit Helm

    (Alfred Wegener Institute)

  • Angelika Humbert

    (Alfred Wegener Institute)

  • Jérémie Mouginot

    (Université Grenoble Alpes)

  • Romain Millan

    (Université Grenoble Alpes)

  • Kurt H. Kjær

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Anders A. Bjørk

    (University of Copenhagen)

Abstract

Over the past two decades, ice loss from the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) has increased owing to enhanced surface melting and ice discharge to the ocean1–5. Whether continuing increased ice loss will accelerate further, and by how much, remains contentious6–9. A main contributor to future ice loss is the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS), Greenland’s largest basin and a prominent feature of fast-flowing ice that reaches the interior of the GrIS10–12. Owing to its topographic setting, this sector is vulnerable to rapid retreat, leading to unstable conditions similar to those in the marine-based setting of ice streams in Antarctica13–20. Here we show that extensive speed-up and thinning triggered by frontal changes in 2012 have already propagated more than 200 km inland. We use unique global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observations, combined with surface elevation changes and surface speeds obtained from satellite data, to select the correct basal conditions to be used in ice flow numerical models, which we then use for future simulations. Our model results indicate that this marine-based sector alone will contribute 13.5–15.5 mm sea-level rise by 2100 (equivalent to the contribution of the entire ice sheet over the past 50 years) and will cause precipitous changes in the coming century. This study shows that measurements of subtle changes in the ice speed and elevation inland help to constrain numerical models of the future mass balance and higher-end projections show better agreement with observations.

Suggested Citation

  • Shfaqat A. Khan & Youngmin Choi & Mathieu Morlighem & Eric Rignot & Veit Helm & Angelika Humbert & Jérémie Mouginot & Romain Millan & Kurt H. Kjær & Anders A. Bjørk, 2022. "Extensive inland thinning and speed-up of Northeast Greenland Ice Stream," Nature, Nature, vol. 611(7937), pages 727-732, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:611:y:2022:i:7937:d:10.1038_s41586-022-05301-z
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05301-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05301-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41586-022-05301-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tamara Annina Gerber & David A. Lilien & Nicholas Mossor Rathmann & Steven Franke & Tun Jan Young & Fernando Valero-Delgado & M. Reza Ershadi & Reinhard Drews & Ole Zeising & Angelika Humbert & Nicola, 2023. "Crystal orientation fabric anisotropy causes directional hardening of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.
    2. Claudia Wekerle & Rebecca McPherson & Wilken-Jon von Appen & Qiang Wang & Ralph Timmermann & Patrick Scholz & Sergey Danilov & Qi Shu & Torsten Kanzow, 2024. "Atlantic Water warming increases melt below Northeast Greenland’s last floating ice tongue," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-10, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:611:y:2022:i:7937:d:10.1038_s41586-022-05301-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.