geodesy and gravity; crustal movements-intraplate; hydrological cycles and budgets; meteorology and atmospheric dynamics; plaeoclimatology; rheology of the lithosphere and mantle
Abstract :
[en] We have analyzed 5 years of continuous Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements taken at Kellyville, just off the western margin of the ice sheet in southern Greenland. A fit to the vertical component gives a negative secular uplift rate of −5.8±1.0 mm/yr. A negative rate (i.e., a subsidence) is consistent with archeological and historical evidence that the surrounding region has been subsiding over the last 3 kyr. However, it is inconsistent with estimates of the Earth's continuing viscoelastic response to melting ice prior to 4 ka years ago, which predict that Kellyville should be uplifting, rather than subsiding, by 2.0±3.5 mm/yr. The resulting −7.8±3.6 mm/yr discrepancy is too large to be the result of loading from present-day changes in nearby ice. We show, instead, that it is consistent with independent suggestions that the western ice sheet margin in this region of Greenland may have advanced by ≈50 km during the past 3–4 kyr.
Disciplines :
Earth sciences & physical geography Physics
Identifiers :
UNILU:UL-ARTICLE-2008-848
Author, co-author :
Wahr, John; Department of Physics and Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder
van Dam, Tonie ; European Center of Geodynamics and Seismology, Walferdange
Larson, Kristine; Department of Aerospace Engineering Services, University of Colorado, Boulder
Francis, Olivier ; European Center of Geodynamics and Seismology, Walferdange
External co-authors :
yes
Language :
English
Title :
GPS measurements of vertical crustal motion in Greenland
