Mirko Scheinert (standing) working on the 79°North Glacier in summer 2017. (Photo: Mirko Scheinert)

GROCE-team starts measurement campaign in Northeast Greenland

On July 13, 2021, our colleagues Mirko Scheinert (TU Dresden) and Matthias Braun (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) together with Shfaqat Abbas Khan (DTU Space Kopenhagen), set off on a measurement campaign to Northeast Greenland. They plan to carry out numerous measurements from July 16 to 25, 2021.

What exactly are they doing up North?
And what is their main interest in collecting the new measurement data?

A report by Mirko Scheinert (13. Juli 2021)

GNSS measurements in NE Greenland at station "BLAF". (Photo: Mirko Scheinert)

During the first project phase, TU Dresden realised repeated precise GNSS measurements (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) at ten stations in Northeast Greenland. Their evaluation and combination with satellite measurements allowed us to derive a detailed picture of the ice mass balance and the deformation of the Earth's crust. The results were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface (Kappelsberger et al. 2021). It turned out that the highest deformation rates were recorded at a measuring point on the western side of Lambert Land.

Exactly there, Mirko Scheinert, project leader of the GROCE subproject 6, plans to set up a new, permanently recording GNSS station. Another focus of this years campaign will be on Zachariæ Isstrøm, next to the 79°North Glacier the second large outlet glacier of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS). Another permanent GNSS station will be set up there to observe the dynamics and local mass balance of the glacier, and to derive the flow velocity of Zachariæ Isstrøm.

GPS measurements on the 79°North Glacier in summer 2017. (Photo: Mirko Scheinert)

Supraglacial meltwater lakes on Zachariæ Isstrøm in summer 2017. (Photo: Mirko Scheinert)

Matthias Braun, project leader of GROCE subproject 7, is an expert in the investigation of supraglacial lakes. The extent and location of supraglacial lakes can be detected using remote sensing methods (Hochreuther et al. 2021). However, there is a lack of information on lake depths to derive the corresponding volumes of the lakes. Depth measurements of lakes on Zachariae Isstrøm will now provide valuable in-situ data to close this knowledge gap.

The field campaign in July 2021 is being carried out in close cooperation with the Danish National Space Institute Copenhagen (DTU Space; Shfaqat Abbas Khan) and in collaboration with the Glaciology section of the Alfred Wegener Institute (see also subproject 2). DTU Space, which is significantly involved in permanent GNSS measurements on bedrock (GNET project), will install additional GNSS stations on the Zachariae Isstrøm and upstream along the NEGIS. Furthermore, the three participating scientists will undertake work to maintain and re-install AWI glaciology measurement devices on the 79°North Glacier.