Present-day Antarctic Ice Mass Changes and Thomas S. James' and R.

• Main Authors: Motion Geophysics Division, Thomas S. James, Erik R. Ivins
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; The Antarctic; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.26.1506; http://techreports.jpl.nasa.gov/1994/94-1392.pdf

. The peak vertical velocities predicted by three realistic scenarios of Antarctic ice sheet mass balance are found to be of the order of several mm/a. One scenario predicts local uplift rates slightly in excess of 5 mm/a, These rates are small compared to the peak Antarctic vertical velocities of the glacial rebound model, which are in excess of 20 If the Antarctic history portrayed in is realistic, and if regional upper mantle viscosity is not an order of magnitude below 102] Pa then a vast geographical area in west Antarctica is uplifting at a rate that could easily be detected by a future Global Positioning System (GPS) campaign. While present-day scenarios predict small vertical velocities, their overall continent-ocean mass exchange is large enough to account for a substantial portion of the observed secular polar motion and time-vatying gravity field J 1 . Introduction Changes in sea-level arc believed to occur chiefly in response to changes in the mass of the icc caps and mount.