D: The Cryosphere Flashcards
How much did ice sheets loose from 1992-2002
7560bn tonnes
Ice sheet contribution to sea level rise from 1992-2002 (Otosaka, 2023)
21mm
2/3 due to GrIS
1/3 due to AIS
How many of the worst melting years have occurred in last decade (Otosaka, 2023)
7
How much sea level rise are ice sheets responsible for
25%
5x what is was 30 years ago
Latest evidence comes from IMBIE
What was the worst year for ice sheet melting (Otosaka, 2023)
2019
612bn tonnes
444bn attribtued to heat wave in Arctic
Where is most melting in Antarctica happening (Otosaka, 2023)
Peninsular region and West where ice margin is being eaten away from beloe by warm oceaan
How much SLR have ice sheets been contributing to per year (Otosaka, 2023)
3mm/yr
What is the potential SLR of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (Luhn, 2023)
52m
- it is beginning to melt
Example of the first melted glacier on the EAIS (Luhn, 2023)
Conger Glacier
- first ice shelf on record to collapse in 2022
When was the EAIS found to be gaining mass overall (Luhn, 2023)
2012
- Comes from satellite gravimetry estimates from King, 2012
Where contains 4/5 of world ice (Luhn, 2023)
EAIS
Why is EAIS more important to SLR than WAIS (Luhn, 2023)
- 52m SLR vs 3-4m SLR
What has sea ice extent around AIS now dropped below (Luhn, 2023)
- 2 million sq km
What tradiaonally prevented AIS from melting (Luhn, 2023)
- Circumpolar winds and ocean currents isolating it
What was the Antarctic heat wave like in 2022
- 39 degrees higher than av temp in March 2022
Example of mapping effors of AIS
- 2008 Siegert et al organised Icecap and Icecap 2 projects to fly over 150,00 sq km (not 14m km2)
Limitations of understanding AIS impacts
Only 23% of ocean floor on East Antactica is mapped
- Problem as ocean troughs are key to undestanding SLR as they can allow warm water to flow under continental shelves to melt ice shelves such as the Denman Glacier
What is the Arctic getting (Amos, 2022)
Wetter
- 10-15% since 1950
Limitations of understanding snowfall and precipitation in the Arctic (Amos, 2022)
- Spareness of minirtoing stations
Impact of warming tempertures on Arctic (Amos, 2022)
- More moisure evaporating from ocean which will precipitate out and show up as snow or rain
- Less albedo, leading to further evaporation and precipiation
Define cryospehre (IPCC, 2021)
- The components of the Earth system at and below the land and ocean surface that are frozen
IPCC comment on anthropogenic impacts (IPCC, 2021)
- “It is very likely that human influence contributed to these reductions”
- “Human-caused global warming is the dominant driver of this observed decline”
Contributions to sea level rise from 1971-2018 (IPCC, 2021)
- Thermal expansion = 50%
- Glaciers = 22%
- Ice sheets = 20%
- Changes in land-water storage = 8%
Define permafrost
- The components of the Earth system at and below the land and ocean surface that are frozen.”
Must know IPCC quote (IPCC, 2021)
“The cryospehre is undergoing rapid changes, with increased melting and loss of frozen water mass in most regions”
What is permafrost defined by
Temperature, not ice cover
What do AIS and GrIS contain
> 99% of all land ice
68% of freshwater
Impact of ice sheet melt globally (IPCC, 2021)
- Enough SWE to raise sea level by 65m
What causes imbalances in ice sheet volume
Imbalances between accumulation and ablation
Define mass balance
Difference beween accumulation and ablation
Major contributor to accumulation
Snowfall
GrIS area (Ringot et al., 2011)
1.7m km2
GrIS volume (Ringot et al., 2011)
3 m km3
SLE of GrIS (RIngot et al., 2011)
7.4m
Volume of AIS (Ringot et al., 2011)
30m km3
SLE of AIS (Ringot et al., 2011)
60m
Where do ice sheets mostly loose mass
Marine terminating glaciers or ice streams
Example of an ice tounge where a floating secion has passed the grounding line
- Peterman Glacier Ice Tougne in NW Greenland
Example of an ice shelf melted
Larcen C ice shelf, Antarctic Peninsular
A38A broke away in 2017 and completely melted by 2021
How are ice sheets measured (van Kampenhout et al., 2020)
- Input output method
- Satellite altimetry
- Gravimetry
How does input-output method work (van Kampenhout et al., 2020)
- Need to know suface mass balance which is calculateed using a climate mass balance model or renalsyis which calculates patterns of accumulation and runoff
- Velocity is caluclated which provides detail in the flux of ice across grounding lines. This is done through ffeature tracking of optical images, speckle tracking of SAR images or inSAR
- The depth of the ice sheet is calulates from an airbourne radar
What did Joughin et al., 2017 do
- Tracked the velicty of ice sheets using opitcal imagery, SAR images and InSAR
Accuracy of InSAR
- cm
Main limitation of using InSAR to measure velocity
- Good where there is little change but not good when there is lots of movement which will happen more due to climate change
Example of altimeter
CryoSat2