CryoSat+Mountain Glaciers » Outreach

CryoSat reveals ice loss from glaciers in Alaska and Asia

admin — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 09:30:32 +0000

CryoSat shows that between 2010 and 2019, the Gulf of Alaska lost 76 Gt of ice per year while High Mountain Asia lost 28 Gt of ice per year. These losses are equivalent to adding 0.21 mm and 0.05 mm to sea level rise per year, respectively.

High Mountain Asia and Pacific Coast Range mass change

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2020 15:39:22 +0000

Cryosat swath data has been used to generate for the first time elevation change at the scale of an entire mountain glacier area in PCR and HMA from radar altimetry.

CryoSat reveals retreat of Patagonian glaciers

admin — Sat, 08 Sep 2018 12:18:41 +0000

Apart from Antarctica, Patagonia is home to the biggest glaciers in the southern hemisphere, but some are retreating faster than anywhere else in the world. This is because the weather is relatively warm and these glaciers typically terminate in fjords and lakes, exacerbating surface melting and causing them to flow faster and lose ice as icebergs at their margins. Traditionally, it has been very difficult to map exactly how fast these glaciers are changing. However, a new way of processing ESA CryoSat swath data now makes it possible to map these glaciers in fine detail. CryoSat has revealed that between 2011 and 2017, there was widespread thinning, particularly in Patagonia’s more northern ice fields.

Heterogeneous and rapid ice loss over the Patagonian Ice Fields

admin — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 12:10:59 +0000

CryoSat-2 swath radar altimetry is employed successfully to map elevation change over the Patagonian Ice Fields at sub-kilometer spatial resolution. Despite the challenging topography, similar to that of mountain glaciers, the technique can be used to observe changes over individual glaciers or catchments with an area as small as 300 km².

Between April 2011 and March 2017, the Ice Fields lost mass at a combined rate of 21.29 ± 1.98 Gt a⁻¹ (equivalent to 0.059 ± 0.005 mm a⁻¹ eustatic sea level rise), an increase of 24% and 42% when compared to the periods 2000–2012/14 and 1975–2000, respectively.

Southern Hemisphere Mass Loss

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 17:09:10 +0000

Swath Processing will allow to better estimate Rates of surface elevation change, Mass loss and contribution to Sea Level Rise in the Southern Hemisphere

Artic Mass Loss

admin — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 17:06:46 +0000

Swath Processing has allowed to better estimate Rates of surface elevation change, Mass loss and contribution to Sea Level Rise in the Artic

Ice Sheet Topography

admin — Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:57:12 +0000

Improved Ice Sheet Topography from CryoSat Swath Altimetry

AGU Fall Meeting 2016

admin — Tue, 04 Oct 2016 14:05:33 +0000

CS+MtG will attended 2016 AGU Fall Meeting

CS+MtG will attended the forthcoming 2016 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco 12 – 16 December 2016

N. Gourmelen et al. ‘CryoTop – CryoSat-2 swath elevation and derived Digital Elevation Models and rates of elevation change products’

Swath processing was featured in a BBC article

admin — Fri, 13 May 2016 13:27:39 +0000

Last May 12^th BBC News published the following article:

Cryosat spacecraft´s ice vision is boosted

By Jonathan Amos BBC Science Correspondent

This article resume how swath altimetry processing works and explains why “European scientists have found a way to super-charge their study of the ice sheets in Antarctica and Greenland”