Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from 1992 to 2020

20 April 2023

By measuring changes in the volume, gravitational attraction, and ice flow of Greenland and Antarctica from space, we can monitor their mass gain and loss over time. Here, the authors present a new record of the Earth's polar ice sheet mass balance produced by aggregating 50 satellite-based estimates of ice sheet mass change. This new assessment shows that the ice sheets have lost (7.5 x 10¹²) t of ice between 1992 and 2020, contributing 21 mm to sea level rise.

The press release by Northumbria University can be found at: https://newsroom.northumbria.ac.uk/pressreleases/polar-ice-sheet-melting-records-have-toppled-during-the-past-decade-3247262

Inès N. Otosaka, Andrew Shepherd, Erik R. Ivins, Nicole-Jeanne Schlegel, Charles Amory, Michiel R. van den Broeke, Martin Horwath, Ian Joughin, Michalea D. King, Gerhard Krinner, Sophie Nowicki, Anthony J. Payne, Eric Rignot, Ted Scambos, Karen M. Simon, Benjamin E. Smith, Louise S. Sørensen, Isabella Velicogna, Pippa L. Whitehouse, Geruo A, Cécile Agosta, Andreas P. Ahlstrøm, Alejandro Blazquez, William Colgan, Marcus E. Engdahl, Xavier Fettweis, Rene Forsberg, Hubert Gallée, Alex Gardner, Lin Gilbert, Noel Gourmelen, Andreas Groh, Brian C. Gunter, Christopher Harig, Veit Helm, Shfaqat Abbas Khan, Christoph Kittel, Hannes Konrad, Peter L. Langen, Benoit S. Lecavalier, Chia-Chun Liang, Bryant D. Loomis, Malcolm McMillan, Daniele Melini, Sebastian H. Mernild, Ruth Mottram, Jeremie Mouginot, Johan Nilsson, Brice Noël, Mark E. Pattle, William R. Peltier, Nadege Pie, Mònica Roca, Ingo Sasgen, Himanshu V. Save, Ki-Weon Seo, Bernd Scheuchl, Ernst J. O. Schrama, Ludwig Schröder, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Thomas Slater, Giorgio Spada, Tyler C. Sutterley, Bramha Dutt Vishwakarma, Jan Melchior van Wessem, David Wiese, Wouter van der Wal, and Bert Wouters

Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1597–1616, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1597-2023, 2023

Contact: Inès N. Otosaka (i.n.otosaka@leeds.ac.uk)