Vertical Land Motion From Present‐Day Deglaciation in the Wider Arctic

Vertical land motion (VLM) from past and ongoing glacial changes can amplify or mitigate ongoing relative sea level change.We present a high-resolution VLM model for the wider Arctic, that includes both present-day ice loading (PDIL) and glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). The study shows that the nonlinear elastic uplift from PDIL is significant (0.5–1mm yr−1) in most of the wider Arctic and exceeds GIA at 15 of 54 Arctic GNSS sites, including sites in nonglaciated areas of the North Sea region and the east coast of North America.

Thereby the sea level change from PDIL (1.85mm yr−1) is significantly mitigated from VLM caused by PDIL. The combined VLM model was consistent with measured VLM at 85% of the GNSS sites (R = 0.77) and outperformed a GIA-only model (R = 0.64). Deviations from GNSS-measured VLM can be attributed to local circumstances causing VLM.