Glacio-geophysical implication of an NNSS positioning in and around Syowa Station, East Antarctica

Abstract

Utilization of the two-wave NNSS receiver drastically improved the positioning accuracy on the ice sheet of Antarctica. The NNSS positioning gives us 3 m three-dimensional convergence with 25 accepted satellite passes, and is most useful for the measurement of ice flow velocity. The flow velocity vectors along Route S-H-Z on Mizuho plateau, East Antarctica were obtained by estimating positional change of glaciological traverse stations after 7 years' interval. The transformation of the coordinate system was necessary before the comparison of the positioning in 1973 by the geodetic traverse method on the Bessel Reference Ellipsoid with that in 1980 by the satellite Doppler method on the NWL-8E Ellipsoid. NNSS receiving experiments at astronomical datum point in Syowa Station enabled us to estimate the translation of the coordinate origin of the Bessel Reference Ellipsoid against the geocentric NWL-8E Ellipsoid and correction terms for coordinate transformation. The obtained flow velocity is 15 m/a at H17 of around 1000 m a.s.l. and 70 m/a at Z2 of around 2000 m a.s.l. with ±6% uncertainty, and is too large to be explained only by the laminar flow of the ice sheet. The obtained velocity vectors are found to be mostly parallel to the maximum slope of the free-air gravity anomaly contours and can be interpreted as the ice sheet sliding down the slope of the subglacial mound of 2400 m relative height from the average subglacial bedrock topography. If such bedrock sliding occurrs over the whole region of Mizuho Plateau, the related thinning of the ice sheet may be detected by the precise measurement of the height change of the same marker station. By dynamically modelling the ice sheet and substituting the observed parameters such as precipitation, principal strain rate, etc., into the equation of ice thickness change the submergence velocity of around −1 m/a is expected and will be detected by carefully designed repetitive NNSS receiving experiments after several year's interval.