Contribution to NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Assessment (PARCA)

The goal of NASA's Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment  (PARCA) is to measure and understand the mass balance of the Greenland ice sheet, with direct measurements of changes, over time, in ice-surface elevation as the primary objective. The program also includes "traditional " mass-balance investigations by comparing ice discharge with total snow accumulation. PARCA projects contribute to the overall goal of measuring and understanding the mass balance dynamics of the Greenland ice sheet.

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• Comparison of ice discharge from higher elevation areas of the entire Greenland Ice Sheet with total snow accumulation gives estimates of ice thickening rates over the past few decades. On average, the region has been in balance, but with thickening of 21 centimeters per year in the southwest and thinning of 30 centimeters per year in the southeast. The north of the ice sheet shows less variability, with average thickening of 2 centimeters per year in the northeast and thinning of about 5 centimeters per year in the northwest. The complete text can be found from the July 21, 2000 issue of Science.

• Thickening/thinning rate for the whole ice sheet airborne laser observations from 1993-9 are compared in the same issue of Science

BPRC research focuses upon measurement of the structural, physical, chemical and electrical properties of the Greenland Ice Sheet, modeling and mapping precipitation and the creation of a GIS integration of PARCA data. These data will help guide the technologies and algorithms for future missions designed to understand the mass balance and dynamics of the Ice Sheet and to learn how ice sheet changes will affect global environment.

Greenland GIS Datasets

BPRC Research groups involved in PARCA

• Ice Core Group
• Glacier Dynamics Group
• Polar Meteorology Group

Recent Papers:

• R. Thomas, T. Atkins, B. Csatho, M. Fahnestock, P. Gogineni, C. Kim, J. Sonntag, 2000. Mass Balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet at High Elevations. SCIENCE, vol 289, pp 426-427.