Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Dynamic Mass Loss From Greenland's Peripheral Glaciers, Katherine E. Bollen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

While global glacier mass balance has decreased rapidly over the last two decades, mass loss has been greatest in regions with marine-terminating glaciers. In Greenland, peripheral glaciers and ice caps (GICs) cover only ~5% of Greenland’s area but contributed ~14-20% of the island’s ice mass loss between 2003-2008. Although Greenland GIC’s mass loss due to surface meltwater runoff have been estimated using atmospheric models, mass loss due to changes in ice discharge into surrounding ocean basins (i.e., dynamic mass loss) remains unquantified. Here, we use the flux gate method to estimate discharge from Greenland’s 594 marine-terminating peripheral glaciers between 1985 …