[en] The Canadian Arctic Archipelago contains >300 glaciers that terminate in the ocean, but little is known about changes in their frontal positions in response to recent changes in the ocean-climate system. Here, we examine changes in glacier frontal positions since the 1950s and investigate the relative influence of oceanic temperature versus atmospheric temperature. Over 94% of glaciers retreated between 1958 and 2015, with a region-wide trend of gradual retreat before ~2000, followed by a fivefold increase in retreat rates up to 2015. Retreat patterns show no correlation with changes in subsurface ocean temperatures, in clear contrast to the dominance of ocean forcing in western Greenland and elsewhere. Rather, significant correlations with surface melt indicate that increased atmospheric temperature has been the primary driver of the acceleration in marine-terminating glacier frontal retreat in this region.
Disciplines :
Sciences de la terre & géographie physique
Auteur, co-auteur :
Cook, Alison J ; Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK ; Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Copland, Luke ; Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
Noël, Brice ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de géographie > Climatologie et Topoclimatologie ; Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU), Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
Stokes, Chris R; Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK
Bentley, Michael J ; Department of Geography, Durham University, Durham, UK
Sharp, Martin J ; Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Bingham, Robert G ; School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
van den Broeke, Michiel R ; Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research (IMAU), Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
Atmospheric forcing of rapid marine-terminating glacier retreat in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
Date de publication/diffusion :
mars 2019
Titre du périodique :
Science Advances
eISSN :
2375-2548
Maison d'édition :
American Association for the Advancement of Science, Etats-Unis
NSERC - Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Leverhulme Trust
Subventionnement (détails) :
We would like to thank NRCan, GLIMS, U.S. Geological Survey, CMEMS, the National Centers for Environmental Information, the Government of Canada, and the World Glacier Monitoring Service for access to datasets. We would also like to thank P. Whitehouse for processing the CMEMS data. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful suggestions that improved the manuscript. A.J.C. was supported by a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and the Department of Geography, Durham University. Additional funding was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, University of Ottawa, and Canada Foundation for Innovation. B.P.Y.N. and M.R.v.d.B. acknowledge funding from the Netherlands Earth System Science Centre (NESSSC) and the Polar Program of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO/NPP).
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