Articles | Volume 15, issue 4
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1889-2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-1889-2021
Research article
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19 Apr 2021
Research article | Highlight paper |  | 19 Apr 2021

On the attribution of industrial-era glacier mass loss to anthropogenic climate change

Gerard H. Roe, John Erich Christian, and Ben Marzeion

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Cited articles

Allen, M. R., Dube, O. P., Solecki, W., Aragón-Durand, F., Cramer, W., Humphreys, S., Kainuma, M., Kala, J., Mahowald, N., Mulugetta, Y., Perez, R., Wairiu, M., and Zickfeld, K.: Framing and Context, in: Global Warming of 1.5C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty, edited by: Masson-Delmotte, V., Zhai, P., Pörtner, H.-O., Roberts, D., Skea, J., Shukla, P. R., Pirani, A., Moufouma-Okia, W., Péan, C., Pidcock, R., Connors, S., Matthews, J. B. R., Chen, Y., Zhou, X., Gomis, M. I., Lonnoy, E., Maycock, T., Tignor, M., and Waterfield, T., World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 47–92, 2018. 
Bindoff, N. L., Stott, P. A., Achuta Rao, K. M., Allen, M. R., Gillett, N., Gutzler, D., Hansingo, K., Hegerl G., Hu, Y., Jain, S., Mokhov, I. I., Overland, J., Perlwitz, J., Sebbari, R., and Zhang, X.: Chapter 10 – Detection and attribution of climate change: From global to regional, in: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC Working Group I Contribution to AR5, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013. 
Burgess, D. O. and Sharp, M. J.: Recent Changes in Areal Extent of the Devon Ice Cap, Nunavut, Canada, Arct. Antarc. Alp. Res., 36, 261–271, 2004. 
Christian, J. E., Koutnik, M. R., and Roe, G. H.: Committed retreat: Controls on glacier disequilibrium in a warming climate, J. Glaciol., 64, 1–14, https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2018.57, 2018. 
Christian, J. E., Carnahan, E., Koutnik, M. R., Whorton, E., and Roe, G. H.: Differences in the transient response of individual glaciers: a case study in the Washington Cascades, in review, 2021. 
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Short summary
The worldwide retreat of mountain glaciers and consequent loss of ice mass is one of the most obvious signs of a changing climate and has significant implications for the hydrology and natural hazards in mountain landscapes. Consistent with our understanding of the human role in temperature change, we demonstrate that the central estimate of the size of the human-caused mass loss is essentially 100 % of the observed loss. This assessment resolves some important inconsistencies in the literature.
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