A detection of the sea level fingerprint of Greenland Ice Sheet melt

Coulson, Sophie; Dangendorf, Sönke; Mitrovica, Jerry X.; Tamisiea, Mark E.; Pan, Linda; Sandwell, David T.

doi:10.1126/science.abo0926

Title: A detection of the sea level fingerprint of Greenland Ice Sheet melt

Journal Article · Thu Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Science

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abo0926· OSTI ID:1894844

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Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA (United States)
Harvard Univ., Cambridge, MA (United States)
Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
Univ. of California, San Diego, CA (United States)

Rapid melting of ice sheets and glaciers drives a unique geometry, or fingerprint, of sea level change. However, the detection of individual fingerprints has been challenging because of sparse observations at high latitudes and the difficulty of disentangling ocean dynamic variability from the signal. Here we predict the fingerprint of Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) melt using recent ice mass loss estimates from radar altimetry data and model reconstructions of nearby glaciers and compare this prediction to an independent, altimetry-derived sea surface height trend corrected for ocean dynamic variability in the region adjacent to the ice sheet. A statistically significant correlation between the two fields (P < 0.001) provides an unambiguous observational detection of the near-field sea level fingerprint of recent GrIS melting in our warming world.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); USDOE Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Program; National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

Grant/Contract Number:: 89233218CNA000001; 80NSSC20K1241

OSTI ID:: 1894844

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-22-20175

Journal Information:: Science, Vol. 377, Issue 6614; ISSN 0036-8075

Publisher:: AAASCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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