Ice Mass Change in Greenland and Antarctica Between 1993 and 2013 from Satellite Gravity Measurements

We construct long-term time series of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet mass change from satellite gravity measurements. A statistical reconstruction approach is developed based on a principal component analysis (PCA) to combine high-resolution spatial modes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of geodesy 2017-11, Vol.91 (11), p.1283-1298
Main Authors: Talpe, Matthieu J., Nerem, R. Steven, Forootan, Ehsan, Schmidt, Michael, Lemoine, Frank G., Enderlin, Ellyn M., Landerer, Felix W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antarctic ice sheet
Coefficients
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Geodetics
Geophysics/Geodesy
Geosciences (General)
Glaciation
GRACE satellite
Gravity
Ice
Interannual variations
Mass
Original Article
Principal components analysis
Resolution
Satellite gravity observations
Satellite tracking
Satellites
Time series
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Summary:We construct long-term time series of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet mass change from satellite gravity measurements. A statistical reconstruction approach is developed based on a principal component analysis (PCA) to combine high-resolution spatial modes from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) mission with the gravity information from conventional satellite tracking data. Uncertainties of this reconstruction are rigorously assessed; they include temporal limitations for short GRACE measurements, spatial limitations for the low-resolution conventional tracking data measurements, and limitations of the estimated statistical relationships between low- and high-degree potential coefficients reflected in the PCA modes. Trends of mass variations in Greenland and Antarctica are assessed against a number of previous studies. The resulting time series for Greenland show a higher rate of mass loss than other methods before 2000, while the Antarctic ice sheet appears heavily influenced by interannual variations.
ISSN:0949-7714
1432-1394
DOI:10.1007/s00190-017-1025-y