Earth s sea level is predominantly determined by the amount of ICE contained in the greenland and antarctic ICE sheets. Recently accelerating ICE mass loss from the greenland ICE sheet, is a major…

This is a grant awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to the Regents of the University of Colorado, doing business as the University of Colorado Office of Contracts and Grants Division, for $329,659.15. The grant is funding research to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of water storage in aquifers hidden below the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet. This research aims to improve understanding of meltwater production, transport, storage, and evacuation from the Greenland Ice Sheet to better quantify its contribution to sea level rise. The grant does not have a set-aside designation. As a public research university, the University of Colorado has extensive experience conducting fundamental research across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines under grants and contracts from federal agencies like NASA, the Department of Defense, and NOAA.

Earth s sea level is predominantly determined by the amount of ICE contained in the greenland and antarctic ICE sheets. Recently accelerating ICE mass loss from the greenland ICE sheet, is a major contribution to sea level rise with changes in surface mass balance, particularly surface melting, driving the increase. Despite the global significance of surface melt and subsequent runoff from greenland, the complex processes of melt water production, transport, storage, and evacuation from the greenland ICE sheet are not well quantified. This deficiency in knowledge of the hydrologic system is exemplified by the fact that until 2011 IT was unknown that aquifers, currently storing an estimated 0.4 MM of sea level equivalent, were hidden below the surface of the greenland ICE sheet. The storage of large amounts of water raises two important questions for assessing future sea level rise contributions from the greenland ICE sheet, what is the spatial and temporal variability of the stored water in the greenland ICE sheet? And how much water is being retained and/or stored in the greenland ICE sheet over the winter today and in the past? This proposal will improve our understanding of aquifers by investigating the time evolution of water storage in the greenland ICE sheet by utilizing the earliest datasets available capable of detecting water. We will use the NASA measures calibrated enhance- resolution passive microwave brightness temperatures, nimbus-5 brightness temperatures and backscatter measurements from a variety of missions, like seasat-a, to investigate the spatial onset of water storage in aquifer regions. Additionally, we will improve surface melt mapping resolution and investigate the relationship between aquifer expansion and surface melt extent, melt duration, and estimated melt volume. This proposal directly addresses the cryospheric sciences call to use remote sensing methods and a measures dataset to study land ICE on the greenland ICE sheet for improving estimates of sea level change and validating models. The improved resolution surface melt maps produced from this proposed work will support the greenland today blog post hosted by the national snow and ICE data center that receives over 250,000 hits per year.