PREDICTIONS OF CRUSTAL DEFORMATION CAUSED BY CHANGING POLAR ICE ON A VISCOELASTIC EARTH

Changes in polar ice could cause vertical crustal motion of up to several mm yr􀀀1 along the edge of the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. Measurements of the uplift could help constrain the changing ice volumes. The problem is complicated by the Earth’s visco-elastic response to past loading, including the Late Pleistocene deglaciation. A method is described for removing these visco-elastic effects, by using simultaneous measurements of vertical motion and surface gravity. A linear combination of these two measurement types can be formed which is relatively independent of visco-elastic effects, and which can be interpreted in terms of present-day fluctuations in ice.