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Constraining hydrological and cryospheric mass flux in southeastern Alaska using space‐based gravity measurements
Author(s) -
Tamisiea M. E.,
Leuliette E. W.,
Davis J. L.,
Mitrovica J. X.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2005gl023961
Subject(s) - snow , flux (metallurgy) , environmental science , altimeter , water mass , scaling , climatology , amplitude , water level , geology , oceanography , geodesy , geography , geomorphology , materials science , metallurgy , geometry , mathematics , physics , cartography , quantum mechanics
Watersheds draining into the Gulf of Alaska (GoA) experience large seasonal and inter‐annual variations of water in the form of rain, snow, and ice, but accurate constraints on these variations have been difficult to obtain. Over larger geographic regions, water variations can be inferred directly from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) data. However, because GoA variations occur over such a small region, the inferred average value of water flux increases as the applied smoothing of the GRACE data decreases. We use this observed scaling together with scaling results obtained from forward models to infer a seasonal amplitude of 115 ± 20 km 3 of water and an average contribution to sea level rise over the two years of data of 0.31 ± 0.09 mm/yr. These results suggest that accelerated melting that began in the late 1990s, as inferred from altimetry, continues unabated.