HR: 1340h
AN: C23A-1158    [Abstracts]
TI: Are the Ice sheets Losing Mass?
AU: * Velicogna, I
EM: isabella@colorado.edu
AF: CIRES & Department of Physics, University of Colorado, CAMPUS BOX 390, BOULDER, 80309-0390 United States
AU: wahr, J
EM: wahr@colorado.edu
AF: CIRES & Department of Physics, University of Colorado, CAMPUS BOX 390, BOULDER, 80309-0390 United States
AB: The GRACE satellite mission, launched in March of 2002, provides monthly measurements of time variable gravity at scales of a few hundred kilometers and larger. We use 22 monthly GRACE gravity fields to estimate the linear trends in Greenland and Antarctic ice mass during 2002-2004. This represent a new and independent estimate of the polar ice sheet mass balance. For Greenland, for example, we recover a decrease in total ice mass of 75 ± 26 km³/yr, consistent with estimates from other techniques. Our uncertainty estimates for both Greenland and Antarctica are dominated by the effects of GRACE measurement errors and errors in our post glacial rebound correction.
DE: 0726 Ice sheets
DE: 0738 Ice (1863)
DE: 1218 Mass balance (0762, 1223, 1631, 1836, 1843, 3010, 3322, 4532)
DE: 1655 Water cycles (1836)
DE: 1863 Snow and ice (0736, 0738, 0776, 1827)
SC: Cryosphere [C]
MN: Fall Meeting 2005