Geodetic observations of accelerating ice loss in Greenland
Abstract
The long-lived CGPS stations established in Kellyville (KELY), Kulusuk (KULU) and Thule (THU1/2/3) in the 1990's have all recorded large accelerations in the vertical displacement of the earth's crust from the mid-1990's to the present day. Since PGR proceeds at an effectively constant rate at the decadal timescale, these accelerations must manifest earth's instantaneous response to accelerations in ice loss. Since the deployment of the Greenland GPS Network (GNET), which took place in 2007-2009, bedrock motion is being measured at ~ 50 GPS stations located near the margins of the Greenland Ice Sheet. A great many of the GNET stations recorded a pulse of enhanced uplift during the record-breaking summer of 2010. In this presentation we show that many of these stations are recording more sustained accelerations. That is, at many GNET stations, especially in South Greenland, the rate of uplift since early 2010 is much greater than the rate of uplift observed from 2007 to early 2010. Thus the enhanced ice loss observed in the unusually hot and prolonged summer of 2010, was part of a longer-term acceleration in ice loss. We show how this conclusion is confirmed by concurrent accelerations in the horizontal components of crustal displacement.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012AGUFM.T33I..01B
- Keywords:
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- 0762 CRYOSPHERE / Mass balance;
- 1243 GEODESY AND GRAVITY / Space geodetic surveys;
- 1621 GLOBAL CHANGE / Cryospheric change;
- 8159 TECTONOPHYSICS / Rheology: crust and lithosphere