Seasonal velocities of eight major marine-terminating outlet glaciers of the Greenland ice sheet from continuous in situ GPS instruments

A. P. Ahlstrøm, S. B. Andersen, M. L. Andersen, H. Machguth, F. M. Nick, I. Joughin, C. H. Reijmer, R. S. W. Van De Wal, J. P. Merryman Boncori, J. E. Box, M. Citterio, D. Van As, R. S. Fausto, A. Hubbard

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

38 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We present 17 velocity records derived from in situ stand-alone single-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers placed on eight marine-terminating ice sheet outlet glaciers in South, West and North Greenland, covering varying parts of the period summer 2009 to summer 2012. Common to all the observed glacier velocity records is a pronounced seasonal variation, with an early melt season maximum. The GPS-derived velocities are compared to velocities derived from radar satellite imagery over six of the glaciers to illustrate the potential of the GPS data for validation purposes. Three different velocity map products are evaluated, based on ALOS/PALSAR data, TerraSAR-X/Tandem-X data and an aggregate winter TerraSAR-X data set. The velocity maps derived from TerraSAR-X/Tandem-X data have a mean difference of 1.5% compared to the mean GPS velocity over the corresponding period, while velocity maps derived from ALOS/PALSAR data have a mean difference of 8.3%. The velocity maps derived from the aggregate winter TerraSAR-X data set have a mean difference of 9.5% to the corresponding GPS velocities. The data are available from the GEUS repository at doi:10.5280/GEUS000001.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)27-57
JournalEarth System Science Data Discussions
Volume6
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 23 Jan 2013

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