GPS Monitoring of Vertical Crustal Motion Around Glaciers on Devon and Ellesmere Islands, 2008-2019

Our goal is to collect continuous GPS measurements of the elevation of the Earths crust in the vicinity of glaciers in the Lake Hazen basin in order to monitor the elastic deformation of the crust caused by changes in the mass of the glaciers that occur in response to changes in climate. We expect the crust to rise if glacier mass decreases due to melting and to sink if it increases due to snowfall. We expect to see a seasonal cycle of crustal sinking and crustal uplift related to the winter snowfall and summer melt periods, and a multi-year trend of either uplift or sinking depending on whether glaciers are losing or gaining mass. We will use these longer-term trends as indices of trends in glacier mass over time. However, the data will first need to be corrected for the effects of plate tectonic motion of the crust and viscous crustal deformation that continues as a response to the removal of the last Innuitian Ice Sheet from the region.