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Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet at High Elevations
R. Thomas,1*T. Akins,2B. Csatho,3M. Fahnestock,4P. Gogineni,5C. Kim,3J. Sonntag1
Comparison of ice discharge from higher elevation areas of the
entire Greenland Ice Sheet with total snow accumulation givesestimates
of ice thickening rates over the past few decades. Onaverage, the
region has been in balance, but with thickening of21 centimeters per
year in the southwest and thinning of 30 centimetersper year in the
southeast. The north of the ice sheet shows lessvariability, with
average thickening of 2 centimeters per yearin the northeast and
thinning of about 5 centimeters per yearin the northwest. These
results agree well with those from repeatedaltimeter surveys, except
in the extreme south, where we findsubstantially higher rates of both
thickening and thinning.
1 EG&G Services, Wallops Flight Facility,
Building N-159, Wallops Island, VA 23337, USA.
2 Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, M/S 300-325, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA
91109, USA.
3 Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State
University, Columbus, OH 42310, USA.
4 ESSIC,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
5 Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory,
University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed.
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:
In Science Magazine
PERSPECTIVES
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen (21 July 2000) Science289 (5478), 404.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5478.404] |Summary »|Full Text »
REPORTS
W. Krabill, W. Abdalati, E. Frederick, S. Manizade, C. Martin, J. Sonntag, R. Swift, R. Thomas, W. Wright, and J. Yungel (21 July 2000) Science289 (5478), 428.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.289.5478.428] |Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Kinematic Constraints on Glacier Contributions to 21st-Century Sea-Level Rise.
Greenland Ice Sheet: High-Elevation Balance and Peripheral Thinning.
W. Krabill, W. Abdalati, E. Frederick, S. Manizade, C. Martin, J. Sonntag, R. Swift, R. Thomas, W. Wright, and J. Yungel (2000)
Science
289, 428-430
|Abstract »|Full Text »
