Interannual glacier and lake mass changes over Scandinavia from GRACE

Abstract

SUMMARY The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite gravimetry observations have been widely used in the study of glaciers. However, there is still no detailed GRACE-based study of the glaciers over the Scandinavian Mountains (SCAMs), where the glaciers are debris-covered and the effects of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) are significant. In this paper, GRACE observations are combined with climate data to analyse interannual mass changes in glacier and lake areas over Scandinavia during the period from 2003 to 2016. An inversion algorithm, the constrained forward modelling method, is used to recover the signals of glaciers and lakes from GRACE observations. Our results show that the total glacier mass loss rate over Scandinavia is –1.0 ± 1.1 Gt yr–1 during our study period. We find that the glacier accumulation regime in different subregions of the SCAMs may be different. The glacier mass change in the central SCAMs tends to be mainly driven by precipitation. Two rapid transitions from dry/wet years to wet/dry years in the lake area in south Scandinavia are identified by multiple data. The transitions are likely caused by changes in atmospheric circulation, that is surface wind. The mass changes of Scandinavia can be primarily explained by the influence of winds. We find that the glacier area is controlled by both the northerly and southerly winds, while the lake area is mainly driven by the southerly winds. This discrepancy leads to the different mechanisms of mass change in glacier and lake areas. We also discuss the influence of GIA, and suggest that the GRACE-derived long-term hydrology trends over Scandinavia may be unreliable and need to be verified. Our study indicates that GRACE data have potential in detecting small-scale glacier changes.