Main Program Components
- Periodic airborne laser-altimetry surveys along precise repeat tracks across all major ice drainage basins. The first survey was completed in 1993/1994, with repeat flights along selected routes in 1995 and 1996, when flights were also made over ice caps in eastern Canada, Svalbard, and Iceland.
- Ice-thickness measurements along the same flight lines
- Localized measurements of ice thickness change in shallow drill holes.
- Monitoring of various surface characteristics of the ice sheet using satellite radar altimetry, SAR, passive-microwave, AVHRR, and scatterometer data.
- Surface-based measurements of ice motion at 30-km intervals approximately along the 2000-meter contour completely around the ice sheet, with interpolation of local relative ice motion using interferometric SAR.
- Shallow ice cores (10 - 200 meters) at many locations to infer recent climate history, atmospheric chemistry, and interannual variability of snow-accumulation rates, and to measure temperature and vertical ice motion at various depths.
- Investigations of surface energy balance and factors affecting snow accumulation and surface ablation. This program is a collaborative effort with NSF, and includes the installation of automatic weather stations (AWS) at many of the drill-hole sites.
- Estimating snow-accumulation rates by climate-model analysis of column water vapor obtained from radiosondes and TOVS data.
- Detailed investigations of individual glaciers and ice streams responsible for much of the outflow from the ice sheet.
- Development of a thermal probe to measure various ice characteristics at selected depths in the ice sheet.
- Continuous monitoring of crustal motion using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers at coastal sites.
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PARCA Research Groups
- Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL), Hanover, NH
- NASA: Headquarters, Washington DC
- NASA: Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
- NASA: Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, VA
- NOAA: Geosciences Laboratory, Office of Ocean and Earth Sciences, Boulder, CO
- The Ohio State University: Byrd Polar Research Center, Columbus, OH
- University of Arizona: Department of Hydrology and Water Resources, Tucson, AZ
- University of Colorado: CIRES, Boulder, CO
- University of Colorado: Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR), Boulder, CO
- University of Georgia, Department of Geography, Athens, GA
- University of Maryland, Joint Center for Earth System Science, College Park, MD
- University of Nebraska: Snow and Ice Research Group (SIRG), Lincoln, NE
- University of Kansas: Radar Systems and Remote Sensing Laboratory, Lawrence, KS
- University of Missouri at Kansas City, Department of Elec. Engineering, Kansas City, MO
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