Principal Results

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Siple Coast ice streams of West Antarctica; Antarctic; Greenland; Siple; Siple Coast; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.552.5155; http://climatechange.umaine.edu/Research/Contrib/pdf/pdfFiles/contribution08.pdf

The polar ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica are the least explored reservoirs of water on the planet and might be contributing to global sea level rise as the change size and shape. The ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica contain enough water that if completely melted, would raise global sea level by 90 meters. There is currently a great deal of uncertainty as to how these ice sheets are contributing to sea level rise. Some estimates account for half of the observed 1mm/yr rise in sea level from shrinking polar ice sheets. The large size and remote location of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets present obvious logistic and technical challenges to measuring their mass balance (rate of change). We are conducting two types of programs to better understand current ice sheet mass balance patters. One program involves mapping Antarctic elevation changes with time using an airborne laser altimeter. The second program entails the calculation of local rates of ice sheet thickness changes using the precise field measurements of vertical velocity and snow accumulation rate. This experiment is being conducted at numerous sites in Greenland and Antarctica.