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The number of Arctic glaciers with direct, long–term measurements of mass balance is limited. Here we used satellite–based observations of the glacier snowline altitude (SLA), the location of the transition between snow cover and ice late in the summer, to approximate the position of the equilibrium line altitude (ELA)–a parameter important for mass balance assessment and for understanding the response of glaciers to climate change. We mapped the snowline (SL) on a subset of 269 land–terminating glaciers above 60 °N latitude in the latest available summer, clear–sky Landsat satellite image between 1984 and 2022. The mean SLA was extracted using the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) Global Digital Elevation Model (GDEM). We compare remotely–observed SLA observations with available long–term field–based measurements of ELA and with ERA5–Land reanalysis climate data. Over the last four decades, Arctic glacier SLAs have risen an average of ~152 m (3.9±0.4 m yr–1; R2=0.74, p<0.001), with a corresponding summer (June, July, August) temperature shift of +1.2 °C at the glacier locations. This equates to a 127±5 m shift per 1 °C of summer warming. However, along with warming, we observe an overall decrease in snowfall, an increase in rainfall, and a decrease in the total number of days in which the mean daily temperature is less than or equal to 0 °C. Glacier SLA is most strongly correlated with the number of freezing days, emphasizing the dual effect of multi–decadal trends in mean annual temperature on both ablation (increasing melt) and accumulation processes (reducing the number of days in which snow can fall). Although we find evidence for a negative morpho–topographic feedback that occurs as glaciers retreat to higher elevations, we show that more than 50 % of the glaciers studied here could be entirely below the SLA by 2100, assuming the pace of global warming and the mean rate of SLA rise is maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tidewater glaciers in Greenland experienced widespread retreat during the last century. Information on their behaviour prior to this is often poorly constrained due to lack of observations, while determining the drivers prior to instrumental records is also problematic. Here we present a record of the dynamics of Kangiata Nunaata Sermia (KNS), southwest Greenland, from its Little Ice Age maximum (LIAmax) to 1859 – the period before continuous air temperature observations began at Nuuk in 1866. Using glacial geomorphology, historical accounts, photographs and GIS analyses, we provide evidence KNS was at its LIAmax by 1761, had retreated by ∼5 km by 1808 and a further 7 km by 1859. This predates retreat at Jakobshavn Isbrae by 43–113 years, demonstrating the asynchroneity of tidewater glacier terminus response following the LIA. We use a one-dimensional flowband model to determine the relative sensitivity of KNS to atmospheric and oceanic climate forcing. Results demonstrate that terminus forcing rather than surface mass balance drove the retreat. Modelled glacier sensitivity to submarine melt rates is also insufficient to explain the retreat observed. However, moderate increases in crevasse water depth, driving an increase in calving, are capable of causing terminus retreat of the observed magnitude and timing.

The Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is losing mass as the climate warms through both increased meltwater runoff and ice discharge at marine-terminating sectors. At the ice sheet surface, meltwater runoff forms a dynamic supraglacial hydrological system which includes stream and river networks and large supraglacial lakes (SGLs). Streams and rivers can route water into crevasses or into supraglacial lakes with crevasses underneath, both of which can then hydrofracture to the ice sheet base, providing a mechanism for the surface meltwater to access the bed. Understanding where, when, and how much meltwater is transferred to the bed is important because variability in meltwater supply to the bed can increase ice flow speeds, potentially impacting the hypsometry of the ice sheet in grounded sectors, and iceberg discharge to the ocean. Here we present a new, physically based, supraglacial hydrology model for the GrIS that is able to simulate (a) surface meltwater routing and SGL filling; (b) rapid meltwater drainage to the ice sheet bed via the hydrofracture of surface crevasses both in and outside of SGLs; (c) slow SGL drainage via overflow in supraglacial meltwater channels; and, by offline coupling with a second model, (d) the freezing and unfreezing of SGLs from autumn to spring. We call the model the Supraglacial Hydrology Evolution and Drainage (or SHED) model. We apply the model to three study regions in southwest Greenland between 2015 and 2019 (inclusive) and evaluate its performance with respect to observed supraglacial lake extents and proglacial discharge measurements. We show that the model reproduces 80 % of observed lake locations and provides good agreement with observations in terms of the temporal evolution of lake extent. Modelled moulin density values are in keeping with those previously published, and seasonal and inter-annual variability in proglacial discharge agrees well with that which is observed, though the observations lag the model by a few days since they include transit time through the subglacial system, while the model does not. Our simulations suggest that lake drainage behaviours may be more complex than traditional models suggest, with lakes in our model draining through a combination of both overflow and hydrofracture and with some lakes draining only partially and then refreezing. This suggests that, in order to simulate the evolution of Greenland's surface hydrological system with fidelity, a model that includes all of these processes needs to be used. In future work, we will couple our model to a subglacial model and an ice flow model and thus use our estimates of where, when, and how much meltwater gets to the bed to understand the consequences for ice flow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Greenland Ice Sheet is a major contributor to current and projected sea level rise in the warming climate. However, uncertainties in Greenland's contribution to future sea level rise remain, partly due to challenges in constraining the role of ice dynamics. Transient ice accelerations, or ice speed-up events, lasting from 1 d to 1 week, have the potential to indirectly affect the mass budget of the ice sheet. They are triggered by an overload of the subglacial drainage system due to an increase in water supply. In this study, we identify melt-induced ice speed-up events at the Russell Glacier, southwest Greenland, in order to analyse synoptic patterns driving these events. The short-term speed-up events are identified from daily ice velocity time series collected from six GPS stations along the glacier for each summer (May–October) from 2009 to 2012. In total, 45 ice speed-up events are identified, of which we focus on the 36 melt-induced events, where melt is derived from two in situ observational datasets and one regional climate model forced by ERA5 reanalysis. We identify two additional potential water sources, namely lake drainages and extreme rainfall, which occur during 14 and 4 out of the 36 melt-induced events, respectively. The 36 melt-induced speed-up events occur during synoptic patterns that can be grouped into three main clusters: (1) patterns that resemble atmospheric rivers with a landfall in southwest Greenland, (2) patterns with anticyclonic blocking centred over southwest Greenland, and (3) patterns that show low-pressure systems centred either south or southeast of Greenland. Out of these clusters, the one resembling atmospheric river patterns is linked to the strongest speed-up events induced by 2 to 3 d continuously increasing surface melt driven by anomalously high sensible heat flux and incoming longwave radiation. In the other two clusters, the net shortwave radiation dominates the contribution to the melt energy. As the frequency and intensity of these weather patterns may change in the warming climate, so may the frequency and intensity of ice speed-up events, ultimately altering the mass loss of the ice sheet. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iceberg calving accounts for up to half of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), with their size distributions providing insights into glacier calving dynamics, and impacting fjord environments through their melting and subsequent freshwater release. Iceberg area and volume data for the GrIS are currently limited to a handful of fjord locations, while existing approaches to iceberg detection are often time consuming and are not always suited for long time series analysis over large spatial scales. This study presents a fully automated workflow for the detection of icebergs within Google Earth Engine using high spatial resolution timestamped ArcticDEM (Arctic Digital Elevation Model) strip data. This is applied to three glaciers that exhibit a range of different iceberg densities and size distributions: Sermeq Kujalleq (Jakobshavn Isbræ), Umiammakku Isbræ and Kangiata Nunaata Sermia. A total of 39 ArcticDEM scenes are analysed, detecting a total of 163,738 icebergs in 6 minutes to 2 hours for each glacier depending on the number of DEMs available and total area analysed, comparing well with manually digitised outlines. Results reveal two distinct iceberg distributions at Sermeq Kujalleq and Kangiata Nunaata Sermia where iceberg density is high, and one distribution at Umiammakku Isbræ where iceberg density is low. Small icebergs are found to account for over 80% of each glacier's icebergs however, they only contribute to 10-37% of total iceberg volume suggesting that large icebergs are proportionally more important for glacier mass loss and as fjord freshwater reservoirs. The overall dataset is used to construct new area to volume conversions (with associated uncertainties) that can be applied to twodimensional iceberg outlines derived from optical or synthetic aperture radar imagery. When data are expressed in terms of total iceberg count and volume, insight is provided into iceberg distributions that have potential applicability to observations and modelling of iceberg calving behaviour and fjord freshwater fluxes. Due to the speed and automated nature of our approach, this workflow offers the potential to interrogate iceberg data on a pan-Arctic scale where there is sufficient ArcticDEM coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glacial varves can give significant insights into recession and melting rates of decaying ice sheets. Moreover, varve chronologies can provide an independent means of comparison to other annually resolved climatic archives, which ultimately help to assess the timing and response of an ice sheet to changes across rapid climate transitions. Here we report a composite 1257-year-long varve chronology from southeastern Sweden spanning the regional late Allerød-late Younger Dryas pollen zone. The chronology was correlated to the Greenland Ice-Core Chronology 2005 using the time-synchronous Vedde Ash volcanic marker, which can be found in both successions. For the first time, this enables secure placement of the Lateglacial Swedish varve chronology in absolute time. Geochemical analysis from new varve successions indicate a marked change in sedimentation regime accompanied by an interruption of ice-rafted debris deposition synchronous with the onset of Greenland Stadial 1 ( GS-1; 12 846 years before AD 1950). With the support of a simple ice-flow/calving model, we suggest that slowdown of sediment transfer can be explained by ice-sheet margin stabilization/advance in response to a significant drop of the Baltic Ice Lake level. A reassessment of chronological evidence from central-western and southern Sweden further supports the hypothesis of synchronicity between the first (penultimate) catastrophic drainage of the Baltic Ice Lake and the start of GS-1 in Greenland ice-cores. Our results may therefore provide the first chronologically robust evidence linking continental meltwater forcing to rapid atmosphere-ocean circulation changes in the North Atlantic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenlandic tidewater glaciers (TWGs) have been undergoing widespread retreat since the mid-1990s and contribute up to 50% of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS), though a comprehensive annual record of their retreat during the satellite age is currently lacking. Here we present a Greenland-wide dataset of annual terminus positions for 220 TWGs for the period 1984-2017 based on Landsat 4-8 and Sentinel 2 imagery (n = 3833). These were manually digitised using the cloud-computing based Google Earth Engine Digitisation Tool (GEEDiT), and their changes quantified using the curvilinear box method within the Margin Change Quantification Tool (MaQiT; Lea, 2018). Results were analysed alongside regional climate data (including air and sea surface temperatures), and with the supervised machine learning tree ensemble method Random Forests to determine the existence of threshold-type behaviour that may influence terminus stability. After normalising terminus behaviour of all glaciers, our analysis highlights distinct linear trends in the regional response of TWG termini. The south-east, south-west and north-west regions are all found to behave comparably (advance/stability until the mid-1990s followed by sustained retreat until 2017). However, in the north-east sustained retreat occurred since the mid-1980s, which then accelerated in 2008/2009.The multi-decadal timescale data set generated by this study enables the identification of a regional linear trend of TWG behaviour for the first time, and has allowed the application of Random Forests to determine the relative influence of climate forcings on termini positions. We anticipate that the results of this study hold a potential for creating new, empirically based predictive models of TWG change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]