Brief Communication: Global reconstructions of glacier mass change during the 20th century are consistent

Abstract. Estimates of the contribution of glaciers to sea-level rise during the 20th century that were published in recent years are strongly divergent. Advances in data availability have allowed revisions of some of these published estimates. Here we show that outside of Antarctica, the global estimates of glacier mass loss obtained from glacier-length-based reconstructions and from a glacier model driven by gridded climate observations are now consistent with each other, and also with an estimate for the years 2003–2009 that is mostly based on remotely sensed data. This consistency is found throughout the entire common periods of the respective data sets. Inconsistencies of reconstructions and observations persist in estimates on regional scales.