Complex evolving patterns of mass loss from Antarctica’s largest glacier

Pine Island Glacier has contributed more to sea level rise over the past four decades than any other glacier in Antarctica. Model projections indicate that this will continue in the future but at conflicting rates. Some models suggest that mass loss could dramatically increase over the next few deca...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature geoscience 2020-02, Vol.13 (2), p.127-131
Main Authors: Bamber, Jonathan L., Dawson, Geoffrey J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
704/106/125
704/2151/210
Computer simulation
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth System Sciences
Evolution
Geochemistry
Geology
Geophysics/Geodesy
Glacier flow
Glaciers
High resolution
Mass
Ocean models
Resolution
Satellite data
Satellite observation
Satellites
Sea level
Sea level rise
Thinning
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Pine Island Glacier has contributed more to sea level rise over the past four decades than any other glacier in Antarctica. Model projections indicate that this will continue in the future but at conflicting rates. Some models suggest that mass loss could dramatically increase over the next few decades, resulting in a rapidly growing contribution to sea level and fast retreat of the grounding line, where the grounded ice meets the ocean. Other models indicate more moderate losses. Resolving this contrasting behaviour is important for sea level rise projections. Here, we use high-resolution satellite observations of elevation change since 2010 to show that thinning rates are now highest along the slow-flow margins of the glacier and that the present-day amplitude and pattern of elevation change is inconsistent with fast grounding-line migration and the associated rapid increase in mass loss over the next few decades. Instead, our results support model simulations that imply only modest changes in grounding-line location over that timescale. We demonstrate how the pattern of thinning is evolving in complex ways both in space and time and how rates in the fast-flowing central trunk have decreased by about a factor five since 2007. Thinning rates of Pine Island Glacier, Antarctica’s largest glacier, are now highest in slowly flowing regions, suggesting that future changes in the grounding line may be more modest than thought, according to high-resolution satellite data.
ISSN:1752-0894
1752-0908
DOI:10.1038/s41561-019-0527-z