Antarctic ice velocities from GPS locations logged by seismic stations. Issue 2 (17th November 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: An, Meijian; Wiens, Douglas; An, Chunlei; Shi, Guitao; Zhao, Yue; Li, Yuansheng
• Is Part Of: Antarctic science. Volume 27:Issue 2(2015)
• Page Start: 210
• Page End: 222
• Publication Date: 2014-11-17
• Subjects: GAMSEIS, -- glacier movement, -- navigation-grade GPS, -- POLENET; Science -- Antarctica -- Periodicals; 509.989
• DOI: 10.1017/S0954102014000704
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-1020

Abstract

Abstract: In 2007–08, seismologists began deploying passive seismic stations over much of the Antarctic ice sheet. These stations routinely log their position by navigation-grade global positioning system (GPS) receivers. This location data can be used to track the stations situated on moving ice. For stations along the traverse from Zhongshan station to Dome A in East Antarctica and at the West Antarctic Ice Sheet divide the estimated velocities of the ice surface based on positions recorded by navigation-grade GPS are consistent with those obtained by high-accuracy geodetic GPS. Most of the estimated velocities have an angle difference of <28° with the steepest downhill vector of the ice surface slope at the stations. These results indicate that navigation-grade GPS measurements over several months provide reliable information on ice sheet movement of ≥1 m yr -1 . With an uncertainty of ~0.3–1 m yr -1, this method is able to resolve both very slow ice velocities near Dome A and velocities of >100 m yr -1 on Thwaites Glacier. Information on ice velocity at three locations for which no data from satellite-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar are available have also been provided using this method.