Tracking System For Monitoring Glacier Movement May Help Sea Level Models

By on July 13, 2015


A team at Newcastle University will help predict sea level rise using information gathered from a calving glacier in the Greenland Ice Sheet, according to a release.

The team installed GPS tracking devices back in 2013 to begin to monitor the behavior of the Helheim Glacier in Greenland, which has produced an increasing number of glacial earthquakes in the past two decades. What scientists found was a surprising discovery: The glacier was shifting backward and downward. They explained that the shifting was caused by the earthquake events linked to glacier calving.

Now that they have this information, team members are hopeful that they can use it in models to understand how shifting ice may impact sea levels. They add that the tracking system provides almost real-time information.

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