Crustal motion and sea level changes along the Arctic coasts (CRUSLAC

• Main Authors: Hans-peter Plag, Surija Tatevian, Oleg Zilberstein
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1998
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; arctic cryosphere
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.532.907; http://geodesy.unr.edu/hanspeterplag/publications/pubs/plag_weg98_crus.pdf

The combination of tide gauges with high-precision (space-geodetic) measurements of vertical displacements of the crust and associated absolute gravity changes provide valuable con-straints for observations and models of changes in nearby ice loads. In particular, geodetic observations at tide gauges in the Arctic are of high potential value for global change stud-ies. A preliminary analysis of the available Arctic tide gauge data indicates a spatial pattern in sea level consistent with sig-nificant changes in the ice cover on Greenland and the larger ones of the Arctic islands. However, due to lack of data on crustal motion, ambiguities remain in the separation of geo-centric crustal motion and geocentric sea levels as well as the attribution of the observed trends to past or present changes in the ice loads. It is proposed to co-located several long-operating Arctic tide gauges with continuously recording GPS, to per-form absolute gravity measurements at these selected tide gauges, and to connect all Arctic tide gauges to a geocentric datum. It is expected that these observations will allow to re-duce the uncertainty of the geocentric crustal motion and thus provide a better estimate of the geocentric sea-level trends at these tide gauges. The resulting trends will constitute valuable constraints for changes in the Arctic cryosphere. Moreover, the proposed measurements will also provide new constraints on the present-day tectonical motion of the Arctic crust. 1