Visualizations by
Kel Elkins
Released on September 7, 2018
Since 1993, the Airborne Topographic Mapper or ATM has been monitoring elevation changes of 160 outlet glaciers in Greenland, many of them on an almost annual basis. Rink Glacier in central west Greenland is one example of a 25-year-long time series of elevation changes.
In these visualizations, elevation data for each aircraft flight over the glacier are illustrated using spheres 1m in diameter, with each sphere representing a specific measurement. When viewed together, the spheres form sheets defining the observed surface of the glacier for a given year. The spheres are colored by year, and over time we can see how the glacier's elevation changes.
Towards the end of the visualization, the study area of the Rink Glacier is compared to the future coverage of the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2), as represented by bright green crisscrossing ground tracks.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0