Glaciers distinct from the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are losing large amounts of water
to the world's ocean. However, estimates of their contribution to sea-level rise disagree. We
provide a consensus estimate by standardizing existing, and creating new, mass-budget estimates
from satellite gravimetry and altimetry and from local glaciological records. In many regions,
local measurements are more negative than satellite-based estimates. All regions lost mass
during 2003-2009, with the largest losses from Arctic Canada, Alaska, coastal Greenland, the
southern Andes, and high-mountain Asia, but there was little loss from glaciers in Antarctica.
Over this period, the global mass budget was - 259 +/- 28 gigatons per year, equivalent to the
combined loss from both ice sheets and accounting for 29 +/- 13% of the observed sea-level rise.
|
