The Human Impacts Database

A collection of useful numbers for quantifying the impacts of the human presence on Earth.

Annual Greenland ice sheet mass loss

WaterCryosphere

This quantity is a single measurement of the quantity at a given point in time (2002-2021).

Value:

This is equivalent to...

-275 ± 21 Gt / yr

-(2.99 ± 0.23) × 1011 m3 ice / yr
HuID: 95798
Relevant Year(s): 2002-2021
Summary: The reported value represents the annualized trend of mass lost from the Greenland Ice Sheet. The value is current as of December 2021 yet is subject to change as the value continues to be updated. Data can be accessed after registering for a free Earthdata account.
Method: Estimates of ice sheet mass loss are calculated from satellite gravimetric observations taken by NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellites. The trend value is calculated by a weighted least squares fit to the time series data. The trend uncertainty is calculated at a 1-sigma confidence interval. The uncertainty calculation propagates only monthly uncertainties and assumes observations are uncorrelated. Ice volume loss was calculated from ice mass loss assuming a standard pure ice density of 920 kg / m3.
Source: Wiese, D. N., D.-N. Yuan, C. Boening, F. W. Landerer, and M. M. Watkins JPL GRACE and GRACE-FO Mascon Ocean, Ice, and Hydrology Equivalent Water Height RL06M CRI Filtered Version 2.0, Ver. 2.0, PO.DAAC, CA, USA. Dataset accessed [2020-Aug-10]. (2019)
Dataset: Annualized mass loss trend of the Greenland Ice Sheet (NASA_greenland_trend_200204-202112.csv)
regional resolution
Original Data License: NASA Open Data License
Added By: nsarai