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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Bethan DaviesORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Globally, glaciers and icefields contribute significantly to sea level rise. Here we show that ice loss from Juneau Icefield, a plateau icefield in Alaska, accelerated after 2005 AD. Rates of area shrinkage were 5 times faster from 2015–2019 than from 1979–1990. Glacier volume loss remained fairly consistent (0.65–1.01 km3 a−1) from 1770–1979 AD, rising to 3.08–3.72 km3 a−1 from 1979–2010, and then doubling after 2010 AD, reaching 5.91 ± 0.80 km3 a−1 (2010–2020). Thinning has become pervasive across the icefield plateau since 2005, accompanied by glacier recession and fragmentation. Rising equilibrium line altitudes and increasing ablation across the plateau has driven a series of hypsometrically controlled melt-accelerating feedbacks and resulted in the observed acceleration in mass loss. As glacier thinning on the plateau continues, a mass balance-elevation feedback is likely to inhibit future glacier regrowth, potentially pushing glaciers beyond a dynamic tipping point.
Author(s): Davies B, McNabb R, Bendle J, Carrivick J, Ely J, Holt T, Markle M, McNeil C, Nicholson L, Pelto P
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Nature Communications
Year: 2024
Volume: 15
Online publication date: 02/07/2024
Acceptance date: 26/05/2024
Date deposited: 03/07/2024
ISSN (electronic): 2041-1723
Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49269-y
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49269-y
Data Access Statement: All data used in this work are available open access and source data are provided with this paper. The glacier outlines, source data, and the novel digital elevation models and orthomosaics from the LIA, 1948 and 1979 are available from Mendeley Data (Davies, Bethan (2024), “Juneau Icefield 1770-2020”, Mendeley Data, V3, doi: 10.17632/4djw8z3jrb.3; https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/4djw8z3jrb/2)). Continues at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-49269-y#data-availability Code availability The software used in this manuscript includes ESRI ArcGIS, QGIS, MicMac and MatPlotLib, as well as standard MS Office programmes. Information on installation, system requirements and instructions for use are all available with these software packages. Information on MicMac is available here: https://github.com/micmacIGN/micmac. Code to derive albedo in Google Earth Engine (GEE account needed): https://code.earthengine.google.com/?scriptPath=users%2Frobertmcnabb%2Fjuneau%3Aalbedo.js
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