The Antarctic Ice Sheet Mass Balance from Satellite Geodesy and Modeling

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The goal of the project is a new and comprehensive estimate of the long-term ice mass balance of Antarctica and its major ice drainage basins and the corresponding sea level contribution with unprecedented accuracy. This shall be achieved by combining various types of observations and modeling. The observational fundament are time-variable gravity _eld data from GRACE, surface elevation and elevation-change data from ICESat and ERS-1/ERS-2/ENVISAT and surface ow data from satellite synthetic aperture radar (SAR) . The modeling fundament is thermomechanical ice sheet modeling which provides a long-term dynamic ice mass history and aids modeling of glacial-isostatic adjustment (GIA). GIA modeling and atmospheric modeling of snow accumulation will also be incorporated in the project. The project involves thorough analyses of observational data, the implementation of elaborate methods of combining complementary observations, and strong interactions between observational analyses and modeling. This approach shall meet the project s challenges: Namely, to account for the speci_c spatio-temporal resolutions and speci_c sensitivities of the individual observation and modeling methods, to separate ice mass balance signals from GIA signals as well as from atmospheric and oceanographic signals, to separate interannual ice mass variations from the long-term ice mass balance, and to realistically assess uncertainties.