Interannual surface velocity variations of Pine Island Glacier, West Antartica

Abstract

The surface velocity of Pine Island Glacier, West Antarctica, during the period 1992-2000 is measured with synthetic aperture radar feature-tracking techniques. Over the observation period, we find a monotonic acceleration with a spatially uniform amplitude of about 12% of the surface velocity. The acceleration extends > 80 km inland of the grounding line into a zone of prominent arcuate crevasses. The upper limit of these crevasses has migrated up-glacier by 0.2 km a-1 correlated with a velocity increase of similar size in the crevassed zone. On the other hand, there is no clear correlation between the velocity variations and observations of grounding-line migration. These findings suggest ongoing dynamic thinning of Pine Island Glacier, providing independent confirmation of recent interferometric results obtained by Rignot and others (2002).