Ice Sheets and Ice Shelves
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The understanding of the timescale of ice sheet response to climate change has changed dramatically over the last decade. Rapid changes in ice-sheet mass have surely contributed to abrupt changes in climate and sea level in the past. |
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| Domain: | Terrestrial | |
| Subdomain: | Cryosphere | |
| Scientific Area: | Snow and Ice | |
| ECV Steward: | Hiroyuki Enomoto | |
| Products: | Surface Elevation Change; Ice Velocity; Ice Mass Change; Grounding Line Location and Thickness | |
Greenland Ice Sheet
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Until 2007, rate of decrease in ice sheet height in cm per year. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cambios_en_la_capa_de_hielo_de_…; Work of the United States Federal Government under the terms of Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105 of the US Code.
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ECV Products and Requirements
These products and requirements reflect the Implementation Plan 2022 (GCOS-244).
The requirements are found in the complete 2022 ECVs Requirements document as well: ECV Ice Sheets and Ice Shelves.
| Products | Surface Elevation Change | Ice Velocity | Ice Volume Change | Grounding Line Location and Thickness | ||||||||
| (*) | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | Unit | Values | ||||
| Horizontal Resolution | G | m | m | 50 | km | m | 100 | |||||
| B | 100 | |||||||||||
| T | 100 | 1000 | 50 | 1000 | ||||||||
| Vertical Resolution | G | - | - | - | ||||||||
| B | - | - | - | |||||||||
| T | - | - | - | |||||||||
| Temporal Resolution | G | month | 1 | month | 1 | d | 30 | y | ||||
| B | ||||||||||||
| T | 12 | 12 | 365 | 1 | ||||||||
| Timeliness | G | |||||||||||
| B | ||||||||||||
| T | ||||||||||||
| Required Measurement Uncertainty (2-sigma) | G | m y-1 | m y-1 | 10 | km3 y-1 | m | 1 | |||||
| B | 30 | |||||||||||
| T | 0.1 | 100 | 10 | 10 | ||||||||
| Stability | G | m y-1 | m y-1 | km3 y-1 | m | |||||||
| B | ||||||||||||
| T | 0.01 | 10 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
(*) Goal (G): an ideal requirement above which further improvements are not necessary. Breakthrough (B): an intermediate level between threshold and goal which, if achieved, would result in a significant improvement for the targeted application. The breakthrough value may also indicate the level at which specified uses within climate monitoring become possible. It may be appropriate to have different breakthrough values for different uses. Threshold (T): the minimum requirement to be met to ensure that data are useful.
Data Sources
This list provides sources for openly accessible data sets with worldwide coverage for which metadata is available. It is curated by the respective GCOS ECV Steward(s). The list does not claim to be complete. Anyone with a suitable dataset who wishes it to be added to this list should contact the GCOS Secretariat.
- PARCA: Program for Regional Climate Assessment
- MEaSUREs Annual Antarctic Ice Velocity Maps, 2005-2017, Version 1
- MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GIMP) Digital Elevation Model from GeoEye and WorldView Imagery, Version 1
- Global Land Ice Velocity Extraction from Landsat 8 (GoLIVE)
- US International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition (US ITASE) Glaciochemical Data Version 2 ¨
- Satellite ECV Inventory by the CEOS/CGMS Working Group on Climate (WGClimate)
- ALOS/PRISM 30m DEM (AW3D30) - Authorization required to access this site
