Status of the West Greenland Glacier Inventory 1980

Abstract

A first attempt at a regional assessment of water resources in West Greenland was made by Weidick & Olesen (1978, 1980) with compilation of a basin inventory. It comprises an identification and coding system together with basic physiographic parameters and estimates of water balance elements for a total of 870 basins lying between the west coast and the Inland Ice and extending up to latitude 71°N. A rough assessment of the total water balance of West Greenland (484000 km2) was made whereby 157 km3 of water are retained on the Inland Ice out of a total annual precipitation of 217 km3 , while the net ablation of the Inland Ice contributes about 60 km3 to the annual runoff and 97 km3 are lost due to calving.