Fri Apr 10, F. Flechtner
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Willen, M. O., Uebbing, B., Horwath, M., and Kusche, J., 2026. Improving the representation of the ice–sheet contribution to sea level within a global inversion framework. Geophysical Journal International, 245(1):ggag059, doi:10.1093/gji/ggag059.
• from the NASA Astrophysics Data System • by the DOI System •
@ARTICLE{2026GeoJI.245..059W,
author = {{Willen}, M.~O. and {Uebbing}, B. and {Horwath}, M. and {Kusche}, J.},
title = "{Improving the representation of the ice-sheet contribution to sea level within a global inversion framework}",
journal = {Geophysical Journal International},
keywords = {Global change from geodesy, Satellite geodesy, Sea level change, Time variable gravity},
year = 2026,
month = apr,
volume = {245},
number = {1},
eid = {ggag059},
pages = {ggag059},
abstract = "{The joint use of data from GRACE-like gravity missions and various ocean
altimetry missions in a global inversion approach allows to
quantify the individual contributions to global and regional sea
level budgets. However, the contribution from the Antarctic Ice
Sheet (AIS) is subject to large uncertainties mainly depending
on the applied strategy to account for effects due to glacial
isostatic adjustment (GIA). The large uncertainty of GIA affects
estimates of AIS contributions as well as other elements of sea
level budgets. Here, we investigate strategies to improve the
representation of AIS mass changes within an existing global
inversion framework. The framework employs pre-defined, time-
invariant spatial patterns, the so-called fingerprints, for
representing the individual sea-level budget components,
including AIS contributions. We improve this inversion method by
including additional observations of satellite altimetry over
ice sheets, and by further developing the parametrization of AIS
ice mass changes. We extend from a basin-wise spatial resolution
to a parametrization that resolves time-variable ice mass
changes at about 50 km, enabling a better localization of the
AIS contributions to global and regional sea level change. From
real-data experiments, we obtain ice mass balance estimates that
are well within the uncertainty bounds of published reconciled
estimates utilizing similar data sets. In particular, inclusion
of ice altimetry improves the spatial resolution and at the same
time keeps the global inversion results in line with those from
regional GRACE analyses. We find differences between inversion
results with and without including ice altimetry as an
additional observation. These differences are smaller for the
time period after 2010 with the availability of CryoSat-2
altimetry having improved sensor technology and high-latitude
coverage. This indicates that these differences are caused by
ice altimetry errors, whose further characterization and
consideration within the estimation remains a future task.
Furthermore, the spatial distribution of the differences
suggests that they are also related to GIA errors. The improved
representation of ice sheets in the global framework developed
here provides a pre-requisite for working towards minimizing
GIA-related errors while assessing the ice sheets' mass balance.}",
doi = {10.1093/gji/ggag059},
adsurl = {https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026GeoJI.245..059W},
adsnote = {Provided by the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System}
}
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