The mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GrIS) is crucial for quantifying and properly projecting its contribution to sea level rise as well as to understand the implications of changes in both surface mass balance and ice dynamics in the Arctic system (e.g. impact on atmosphere, ocean, etc.). Over the past years, an increasing number of scientific efforts have been focusing on improving estimates of the mass balance of the GrIS and the physical processes driving such changes. The increasing number of ad hoc observations, both in situ and from airborne and spaceborne platforms, as well as the increasing complexity of regional and global climate models, ice sheet models, and physics parameterizationimplemented there have been catalyzing research activities and the amount of scholarly work focusing on the GrIS.

The goal of this special issue (SI) in The Cryosphere is to provide a venue for collecting papers focusing on the mass balance of the GrIS, with the gal of consolidating the current knowledge and state of the art of the scientific activities on the topic in an open-access, highly accessed, and community oriented journal, such as The Cryosphere. To our knowledge, no such effort has been made since the last PARCA activities, more than 2 decades ago. In view of this, we invite contributions focusing on results addressing the mass balance of the GrIS. The focus of the SI is on (though not limited to) the following: 1) papers specifically focusing on both the surface mass balance (SMB) as well as the ice dynamics of the GrIS, and their interaction, using insitu or remote sensing observations, modelling tools, and the combination of the two; 2) experiments and results addressing the issue of reducing uncertainties on mass balance estimates; 3) the application of novel techniques; 4) “synthesis” papers summarizing the most current methods, results, and applications concerning estimates of the mass balance of the GrIS. Studies generally focusing on the mass balance of the GrIS are also strongly encouraged.