Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes from NASA GSFC GRACE Mascon Solutions

  • Released Friday, December 11, 2009
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Luthcke, S.B., D.D. Rowlands, J.J. McCarthy, A. Arendt, T. Sabaka, J.P. Boy, F.G. Lemoine, "Recent Changes of the Earth's Land Ice from GRACE, " presented at 2009 Fall AGU, H13G-02 (693337), Dec. 14, 2009.

The mass changes of the Greenland Ice Sheet (GIS) are computed from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) inter-satellite range-rate observations for the period April 5, 2003 - July 25, 2009. The mass of the GIS has been computed at 10-day intervals and 200km spatial resolution from a regional high-resolution mascon solution (Luthcke and others, 2008 and 2006). The animation shows the change in mass referenced from April 5, 2003. The spatial variation in surface mass is shown in centimeters equivalent height of water. The time variation of the GIS mass is shown in the x-y plot insert with units of Gigatons.

Corresponding author:
Scott B. Luthcke
NASA GSFC
Planetary Geodynamics Laboratory, Code 698
Scott.B.Luthcke@nasa.gov

This animation shows mass changes over Greenland with a colorbar, graph and clock overlay.

This animation shows mass changes over Greenland without the chart, colorbar or seasonal clock.

A high resolution still image of ice sheet mass changes over Greenland on 07/25/2005.

A high resolution still image of ice sheet mass changes over Greenland on 07/25/2005.

A high resolution still image of ice sheet mass changes over Greenland on 07/25/2009.

A high resolution still image of ice sheet mass changes over Greenland on 07/25/2009.

Overlay of the graph, clock and colorbar with an alpha channel.

This colorbar used for the above animation. The minimum data value is -322.933 while the maximum data value is 101.653.

This colorbar used for the above animation. The minimum data value is -322.933 while the maximum data value is 101.653.

Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio The Blue Marble Next Generation data is courtesy of Reto Stockli (NASA/GSFC) and NASA's Earth Observatory.

This page was originally published on Friday, December 11, 2009.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 12:00 AM EST.

Missions

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Papers used in this visualization

Luthcke, S.B., A.A. Arendt, D.D. Rowlands, J.J. McCarthy and C.F. Larsen. Recent glacier mass changes in the Gulf of Alaska region from GRACE mascon solutions. Journal of Glaciology, Vol. 54, No. 188, 2008. Luthcke, S.B., H.J. Zwally, W. Abdalati, D.D. Rowlands, R.D. Ray, R.S. Nerem, F.G. Lemoine, J.J. McCarthy and D.S. Chinn. Recent Greenland Ice Mass Loss by Drainage System from Satellite Gravity Observations. Science, 314, 1286, 2006. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1130776]

Datasets used in this visualization

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