Observations of Ice Sheet Dynamics in a Warming Climate from Space

Eric Rignot Senior Research Scientist
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Pasadena, CA A little over ten years ago we knew very little about the state of mass equilibrium of ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland. The nature of our knowledge has changed considerably with the advent of satellite techniques capable of measuring ice motion, surface elevation and more recently gravity. In this presentation, I will review the technique I have been using for the past ten years to study glacier dynamics in Greenland and Antarctica and determine their state of mass balance: satellite radar interferometry. It has been employed to detect ice motion, grounding lines, flow speed up and other detailed features associated with ground water migration at an unprecendented level of precision and spatial details. I will discuss how it has been used in combination with other data to come up with new estimates of the present-day evolution of ice sheets, how these results compare to other techniques (some of which published results as recently as a few weeks ago), and how these results (do not) match predictions made by numerical models that international panels of experts rely on to predict future sea level rise. This work was performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Admistration's Cryosphere Science Program.

Location: Stauffer Science Lecture Hall, Rm 100

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: April Mundy