Measuring just how much mass a glacier is losing鈥攖hrough melting and calving鈥攊s no easy task. While there鈥檚 plenty of satellite data from space, scientists haven鈥檛 had access to much local, on-the-ground observation, which is the sort of information that鈥檚 necessary to more accurately measure glacial mass loss.
But now a team of scientists, including CIRES鈥� Mike Willis, have put a series of GPS systems in place that give them the kind of data they need. Using that information, they find that previous estimates of mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet鈥攁lready known to be shrinking鈥攎ay be underestimates. Their study is out today in听.
Willis, who鈥檚 also a glaciologist with the University of Colorado Boulder鈥檚 Department of Geological Sciences, has spent decades studying the Earth鈥檚 ice sheets, including Greenland鈥檚. Over the past two decades, the Greenland Ice Sheet has lost mass as glaciers around the edge flow faster into the ocean and melting in the interior increases in area and duration. Recent work comparing old aerial photographs with modern measurements of the ice show that the basins of the southeast, east and northwest of the ice sheet have contributed to 77 percent of its total mass loss to the ocean over the last century.
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