Arctic glaciers mass balance from satellite gravimetry only

This document describes the LEGOS-Magellium mass balance dataset for Arctic glacier regions based on satellite gravimetry only. A similar dataset using an a priori based on DEM differencing has been submitted to GLAMBIE (Pfeffer et al., 2024). previously. The dataset submitted here does not use an a priori, but uses only satellite gravimetry data. 

The total mass balance is evaluated for five regions of the 6th version of the Randolph Glacier Inventory , namely the Arctic Canada North, Arctic Canada South, Iceland, Svalbard, and, Russian Arctic. The total mass balance of Arctic glaciers is evaluated mainly based on satellite gravimetry measurements. An ensemble approach updated from Blazquez et al. (2018) is adopted to evaluate uncertainties associated with the processing and post-processing of GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) and GRACE-FO (GRACE-Follow On) data. The effect of land hydrology is estimated for each region, but not corrected in the total mass balance dataset, because of the small water mass balance values and large errors inherent to hydrological models. Total mass changes expressed in Gt are estimated from April 2002 to September 2022 for five RGI regions. The uncertainty on total mass changes is provided with a confidence interval of 95%. The dataset is provided in the GlaMBIE CSV file format.

The data product has been developed in collaboration between LEGOS and Magellium within the scope of the hybridationchallenge funded by the CNES (R&T Hybrid Spatial Gravimetry 2022/2023).

Reference:

Blazquez, A., Meyssignac, B., Lemoine, J., Berthier, E., Ribes, A., & Cazenave, A. (2018). Exploring the uncertainty in GRACE estimates of the mass redistributions at the Earth surface : Implications for the global water and sea level budgets. Geophysical Journal International, 215(1), 415‑430. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggy293

Pfeffer, J., Coupry, B., Berthier, E., Blazquez, A., & Barnoud, A. (2024). Arctic Glaciers Mass Balance from satellite gravimetry and DEM differencing [Jeu de données]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/ZENODO.13134559