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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Rachel Carr
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017 This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Accelerated discharge through marine-terminating outlet glaciers has been a key component of the rapid mass loss from Arctic glaciers since the 1990s. However, glacier retreat and its climatic controls have not been assessed at the pan-Arctic scale. Consequently, the spatial and temporal variability in the magnitude of retreat, and the possible drivers are uncertain. Here we use remotely sensed data acquired over 273 outlet glaciers, located across the entire Atlantic Arctic (i.e. areas potentially influenced by North Atlantic climate and/or ocean conditions, specifically: Greenland, Novaya Zemlya, Franz Josef Land and Svalbard), to demonstrate high-magnitude, accelerating and near-ubiquitous retreat between 1992 and 2010. Overall, mean retreat rates increased by a factor of 3.5 between 1992 and 2000 (−30.5 m a−1) and 2000–10 (−105.8 m a−1), with 97% of the study glaciers retreating during the latter period. The Retreat was greatest in northern, western and south-eastern Greenland and also increased substantially on the Barents Sea coast of Novaya Zemlya. Glacier retreat showed no significant or consistent relationship with summer air temperatures at decadal timescales. The rate of frontal position change showed a significant, but weak, correlation with changes in sea-ice concentrations. We highlight large variations in retreat rates within regions and suggest that fjord topography plays an important role. We conclude that marine-terminating Arctic outlet glaciers show a common response of rapid and accelerating retreat at decadal timescales.
Author(s): Carr JR, Stokes CR, Vieli A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Annals of Glaciology
Year: 2017
Volume: 58
Issue: 74
Pages: 72-91
Print publication date: 01/04/2017
Online publication date: 02/11/2017
Acceptance date: 02/04/2016
Date deposited: 20/11/2017
ISSN (print): 0260-3055
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/aog.2017.3
DOI: 10.1017/aog.2017.3
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