title: Glacier mass loss. Dynamic thinning of glaciers on the Southern Antarctic Peninsula.
abstract: Growing evidence has demonstrated the importance of ice shelf buttressing on the inland grounded ice, especially if it is resting on bedrock below sea level. Much of the Southern Antarctic Peninsula satisfies this condition and also possesses a bed slope that deepens inland. Such ice sheet geometry is potentially unstable. We use satellite altimetry and gravity observations to show that a major portion of the region has, since 2009, destabilized. Ice mass loss of the marine-terminating glaciers has rapidly accelerated from close to balance in the 2000s to a sustained rate of -56 ± 8 gigatons per year, constituting a major fraction of Antarctica's contribution to rising sea level. The widespread, simultaneous nature of the acceleration, in the absence of a persistent atmospheric forcing, points to an oceanic driving mechanism.
authors.affiliation: Bristol Glaciology Centre, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK. bert.wouters@bristol.ac.uk.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Wouters
authors.affiliation: Bristol Glaciology Centre, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martin-Español
authors.affiliation: Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz-Zentrum für Polar- und Meeresforschung, Bremerhaven, Germany.
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Helm
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Toulouse, France.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Flament
authors.affiliation: Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
authors.forename: J M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: van Wessem
authors.affiliation: Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
authors.forename: S R M
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Ligtenberg
authors.affiliation: Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, Utrecht University, Netherlands.
authors.forename: M R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: van den Broeke
authors.affiliation: Bristol Glaciology Centre, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bamber