G31A-1102
Surface Mass Balance Contributions to Acceleration of Antarctic Ice Mass Loss during 2003- 2013
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Poster Hall (Moscone South)
Ki-Weon Seo1, Clark R Wilson2, Ted A Scambos3, Baek-Min Kim4, Duane Edward Waliser5, Baijun Tian5, Byeonghoon Kim1 and Jooyoung Eom1, (1)Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea, (2)University of Texas at Austin, Department of Geological Sciences, Austin, TX, United States, (3)National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, CO, United States, (4)Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, South Korea, (5)NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, United States
Abstract:
Recent observations from satellite gravimetry (the GRACE mission) suggest an acceleration of ice mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet (AIS). The contribution of surface mass balance changes (due to variable precipitation) is compared with GRACE-derived mass loss acceleration by assessing the estimated contribution of snow mass from meteorological reanalysis data. We find that over much of the continent, the acceleration can be explained by precipitation anomalies. However, on the Antarctic Peninsula and other parts of West Antarctica mass changes are not explained by precipitation and are likely associated with ice discharge rate increases. The total apparent GRACE acceleration over all of the AIS between 2003 and 2013 is -13.6±7.2 GTon/yr2. Of this total, we find that the surface mass balance component is -8.2±2.0 GTon/yr2. However, the GRACE estimate appears to contain errors arising from the atmospheric pressure fields used to remove air mass effects. The estimated acceleration error from this effect is about 9.8±5.8 GTon/yr2. Correcting for this yields an ice discharge acceleration of -15.1±6.5 GTon/yr2.
