Frontal ablation estimates for 49 tidewater glaciers in Greenland

This data product contains frontal ablation estimates for 49 selected tidewater glaciers in Greenland from 1987-2020 at 3-monthly resolution. Version 6 of the product is available as merged file for all 49 glaciers as point geometry in NetCDF (FrontalAblationEstimates.cdf), Shapefile (FrontalAblationEstimates.shp), and GeoPackage (FrontalAblationEstimates.gpkg) format. The files are stored in the folder FrontalAblationEstimates.zip and the following variables are contained in the NetCDF file with Shapefile/Geopackage specific variables shown in brackets:

• Time – Midpoint of time intervals on which output data is defined [days since 01/01/1950]
• (Date – Midpoint of time intervals on which output data is defined [yyyy-mm-dd])
• Name – Name of each glacier investigated in this study [unitless]
• Lat – Latitude (EPSG:4326) [degrees]
• Lon – Longitude (EPSG:4326) [degrees]
• PolarX – Polar Stereographic X Coordinate (EPSG:3413) [m]; not include in shapefile/geopackage as part of geometry
• PolarY – Polar Stereographic Y Coordinate (EPSG:3413) [m]; not include in shapefile/geopackage as part of geometry
• F – Three-month-average frontal ablation estimates during time intervals [Gt/d]
• F_Max_U – Maximum uncertainty over total time period [Gt/d]
• F_U – three-month-average frontal ablation uncertainty for time intervals [Gt/d]
• D – Three-month-average solid ice discharge during time intervals [Gt/d]
• D_U – Three-month-average solid ice discharge uncertainty for time interval [Gt/d]
• TMC – Terminus mass change (dM/dt) during time intervals [Gt/d]
• TMC _U – Three-month-average terminus mass change uncertainty during time intervals [Gt/d]
• L – Interpolated terminus change over time () [km]
• Delta_L_W – Delineation and fjord width uncertainty (; constant) [km]
• H – Mean ice thickness within the polygon; maximum over the observation period () [km]
• Delta H – Ice thickness uncertainty with constant ArcticDEM/AeroDEM uncertainties of 0.1 m and 6 m, respectively () [km]
• Rho – Ice density (; constant) [kg/km³]
• W – Mean fjord width () [km]
• Bedrock_U – Mean uncertainty in bedrock topography along the centerline [km]
• TI – Time interval over which data are averaged (90 days for the results presented here) [d]
• (Geometry – Point geometry in Polar Stereographic Coordinate Reference System (EPSG:3413 [m])) 

The repository also includes figures for each investigated tidewater glacier to show the calculated frontal ablation estimates in relation with terminus positions change. The figures are available in the Plots folder.

The frontal ablation estimates have been derived using a processing chain which is described in Fahrner et al. (in prep.). The processing chain and further information can been found at 10.5281/zenodo.8414729. 

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When using this data set please use the citation provided in the repository.

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