Award Abstract # 0631994
IPY: Collaborative Proposal: Constraining the Mass-Balance Deficit of the Amundsen Coast's Glaciers

NSF Org: OPP
Office of Polar Programs (OPP)
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CENTER FOR RESEARCH INC
Initial Amendment Date: April 11, 2007
Latest Amendment Date: June 11, 2009
Award Number: 0631994
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Julie Palais
OPP
 Office of Polar Programs (OPP)
GEO
 Directorate for Geosciences
Start Date: September 1, 2007
End Date: February 28, 2011 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $0.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $157,029.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2007 = $134,951.00
FY 2009 = $22,078.00
History of Investigator:
  • S. Prasad Gogineni (Principal Investigator)
    pgogineni@ua.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
2385 IRVING HILL RD
LAWRENCE
KS  US  66045-7563
(785)864-3441
Sponsor Congressional District: 01
Primary Place of Performance: University of Kansas Center for Research Inc
2385 IRVING HILL RD
LAWRENCE
KS  US  66045-7563
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
01
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): SSUJB3GSH8A5
Parent UEI: SSUJB3GSH8A5
NSF Program(s): ANT Glaciology
Primary Program Source: 0100CYXXDB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 0000, 5295, 5297, OTHR
Program Element Code(s): 511600
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.078

ABSTRACT

Joughin 0631973

This award supports a project to gather data to better understand the mass balance of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, in the Pine Island and Thwaites region, through the combination of radar altimetry and surface-based ice-core measurements of accumulation. The intellectual merit of the project is that the results of the field work will provide information on decadal-scale average accumulation extending back through the last century and will help constrain a modeling effort to determine how coastal changes propagate inland, to allow better prediction of future change. Comparison of the basin averaged accumulation with ice discharge determined using Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) velocity data will provide improved mass-balance estimates. Study of changes in flow speed will produce a record of mass balance over the last three decades. Analysis of the satellite altimeter record in conjunction with annual accumulation estimates also will provide estimates of changes and variability in mass balance. The broader impacts of the work are that it will make a significant contribution to future IPCC estimates of sea level, which are important for projection of the impacts of increased sea level on coastal communities. The research will contribute to the graduate education of students at the Universities of Washington and Kansas and will enrich K-12 education through the direct participation of the PIs in classroom activities. Informal science education includes 4-day glacier flow demonstrations at the Polar Science Weekend held annually at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. The project also will communicate results through Center for the Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CRESIS) outreach effort. All field and remotely-sensed data sets will be archived and distributed by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. This project is relevant to IPY in that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is losing mass, in large part because of rapid thinning of the Amundsen Coast glaciers so, it will directly address the NSF IPY emphasis on "ice sheet history and dynamics." The project is also international in scope.

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