Ice-marginal lakes associated with enhanced recession of the Greenland Ice Sheet

摘要: Abstract There has been a progressive increase in the number and area of ice-marginal lakes situated along south-western margin Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) since 1980s. The increased prevalence is notable because their capacity to enhance mass loss ice-margin recession through thermo-mechanical controls. Although such effects have extensively documented at alpine glaciers, an understanding how impact dynamics GrIS limited by sparsity observational records. This study employs Landsat archive conduct multi-decadal, regional-scale statistical analysis advance a ~ 5000 km length GrIS, incorporating its terrestrial, lacustrine marine ice-margins. We reveal extended accelerating phase south-west from 1992 onwards, irrespective type, but also observe considerable heterogeneity behaviour different environments. Marine ice-margins exhibited greatest magnitude variability change, however termini were for rates 1987 2015, which increasingly outpaced those measured terrestrial Furthermore, significant correlations identified between lake parameters recession, including area, latitude, altitude – interface. These results suggest that become important drivers thus further research needed better parameterise causal connections evolution enhanced recession. More widely, detailed impacts on across necessary accurately forecast response ice sheet refine projections sea level rise.