Surface melt dominates Alaska glacier mass balance
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Abstract
Mountain glaciers comprise a small and widely distributed fraction of the world's terrestrial ice, yet their rapid losses presently drive a large percentage of the cryosphere's contribution to sea level rise. Regional mass balance assessments are challenging over large glacier populations due to remote and rugged geography, variable response of individual glaciers to climate change, and episodic calving losses from tidewater glaciers. In Alaska, we use airborne altimetry from 116 glaciers to estimate a regional mass balance of −75 ± 11 Gt yr−1 (1994–2013). Our glacier sample is spatially well distributed, yet pervasive variability in mass balances obscures geospatial and climatic relationships. However, for the first time, these data allow the partitioning of regional mass balance by glacier type. We find that tidewater glaciers are losing mass at substantially slower rates than other glaciers in Alaska and collectively contribute to only 6% of the regional mass loss.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Surface melt dominates Alaska glacier mass balance |
| Series title | Geophysical Research Letters |
| DOI | 10.1002/2015GL064349 |
| Volume | 42 |
| Issue | 14 |
| Year Published | 2015 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | American Geophysical Union |
| Contributing office(s) | Alaska Science Center |
| Description | 7 p. |
| First page | 5902 |
| Last page | 5908 |
| Country | Canada, United States |
| State | Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon Territory |
| Online Only (Y/N) | N |
| Additional Online Files (Y/N) | N |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |