A study of 10 tidewater outlet glaciers on the east coast of Greenland over a 20-year period suggests that a combination of meltwater runoff and ocean warming could account for up to 76% of the observed retreat of individual glaciers and 54% of the variation in retreat across the glaciers, thereby enabling the effects of tidewater glacier retreat to be incorporated into ice sheet models for predicting sea level rise.
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Article #18-01769: "Linear response of east Greenland's tidewater glaciers to ocean/atmosphere warming," by T. R. Cowton, A. J. Sole, P. W. Nienow, D. A. Slater, and P. Christoffersen.
MEDIA CONTACT: P. W. Nienow, University of Edinburgh, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +49-131-650-9139; e-mail: < peter.nienow@ed.ac.uk >
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences