APPLICATION OF AIRCRAFT LASER ALTIMETRY TO GLACIER AND ICE CAP MASS BALANCE STUDIES
The Arctic ice caps and glaciers serve as important indicators of climate change and also make a small, but significant, contribution to changes in global sea level. Consequently, understanding their mass balance is of considerable interest. We are examining the current state of mass balance of the...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.221.9918 http://www.isprs.org/proceedings/XXXII/3-W14/pdf/p161.pdf |
| Summary: | The Arctic ice caps and glaciers serve as important indicators of climate change and also make a small, but significant, contribution to changes in global sea level. Consequently, understanding their mass balance is of considerable interest. We are examining the current state of mass balance of the major Canadian ice caps in the greater Baffin Bay area in the context of recent climate conditions through analysis of precise elevation changes and recent climate history. Using the series of airborne laser/GPS elevation measurements made with the Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) in 1995, in conjunction with planned repeat surveys in the year 2000, we will quantitatively measure and interpret ice thickness changes in the context of recent climate conditions. Such elevation surveys provide the most direct large-scale means of examining the state of balance of these caps. In addition the application of airborne laser altimetry to the study of flow characteristics of glaciers is presented and discussed for three outlet glaciers on the Greenland ice sheet. This work is a complement to the current ATM-based ice sheet analyses that are being conducted for Greenland, but it is focused on smaller ice masses with different temporal responses to climate variations. Recent results of the Greenland missions have shown interesting thickening and thinning characteristics, with the most significant changes found in the more temperate parts of the ice sheet near the margins and in outlet glaciers. Consequently, the assessment of changes in the smaller Arctic ice masses will be an important complement to the results from Greenland, and they will help provide a more complete picture of the current state of balance of the Arctic ice masses. 1 |
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