冰川均衡调整对南极冰质量平衡监测的影响及其不确定性

本文研究了新的全球冰川均衡调整(GIA)模型对南极冰盖质量平衡监测的影响,考虑现有冰川负荷模型和地幔黏滞度模型的差异,完整评估了结果的不确定性,最后结合GRACE和卫星测高的结果进行了对比分析.结果表明,GIA对GRACE监测的等效水柱变化有重大影响,较大的GIA影响出现在西南极,沿罗斯冰架-卡姆布冰流-罗尼冰架-南极半岛分布,最大值在卡姆布冰流,达到29.8 mm/a;GIA对南极整体冰质量平衡的影响达到134±28 Gt/a.在不确定性的方差中,西南极和东南极分别以冰负荷模型差异和地幔黏滞度差异影响为主,对整个南极,冰模型差异影响占88.4%;在一些典型地区,GRACE监测的等效水柱在扣除GIA前后分别是,卡姆布冰流~32.8 mm/a和~6.3 mm/a,阿蒙森海湾~-95.3 mm/a和~-102.5 mm/a,Enderby Land~13.6 mm/a和~8.1 mm/a.整个南极冰盖总质量变化在扣除GIA贡献后为-82±29 Gt/a,该估计与卫星测高结果较吻合.此外,GIA对卫星测高监测的冰面高程变化的影响一般不超过8%.本研究为空间大地测量监测南极冰质量平衡提供了新的改正模型.     

冰川均衡调整对东亚重力和海平面变化的影响

新的全球冰川均衡调整(GIA)模型RF3L20(β=0.4)+ICE-4G考虑了地幔黏滞度沿横向的变化,其黏滞度参数得到大地测量、历史相对海平面变化观测和地震剪切波层析模型的较好约束.本文利用该模型预测了东亚现今重力变化和海平面变化,根据当前末次冰川时空变化和黏滞度参考模型中下地幔下部黏滞度认识的差异,评估了预测的不确定性.结果表明,GIA对东亚地区重力场和海平面长期变化有显著的影响:例如,在哈尔滨、长春、泰安、蓟县、郑州、武汉等测站,GIA重力影响达几十纳伽,可用超导重力仪和未来原子重力仪观测出来;在东亚大陆GIA对GRACE监测的等效水柱长期变化的影响为3%~10%,其中青藏高原西部、华北和三峡地区的影响较大.在东海—太平洋区,GIA的相对影响高达20%~40%;GIA使东亚海域绝对海平面以0.27~0.37 mm/a的速率在长期下降,在黄海、东海卫星测高监测的绝对海平面长期变化中,GIA的相对影响分别达6.9%和7.5%;在58个验潮站,平均相对海平面长期上升速率为2.22 mm/a,GIA影响为-0.17 mm/a,其中14个测站GIA的影响达-0.3~-0.4 mm/a.本文GIA预测的结果,对在东亚地区发现弱的地球动力学过程信号、监测水质量长期变化、监测海平面长期变化和分析其机制,提供精密的改正模型.     

末次冰期冰盖消融对东亚历史相对海平面的影响及意义

基于新的末次冰期冰川均衡调整(GIA)模型,利用有限元算法模拟了盛冰期以来东亚相对海平面的变化,并与观测数据进行比较分析.研究表明,早期相对海平面上升由盛冰期后全球冰盖消融控制,后期的变化则由地壳黏性均衡调整控制;每个时期的结果均具有显著的区域性差异,与地壳均衡作用及远场均衡效应的区域性差异有关;模拟的不确定性主要来自冰盖消融模型差异的影响,量级在观测误差范围内.此外,利用本文的GIA模拟结果,对东亚海岸历史相对海平面观测进行改正,揭示了华南全新世以来不同阶段的地壳垂直运动,其中3—8 kaBP地壳以较稳定的速率(1~4 mm/a)下沉,之后则以较小速率下降或隆升,推测可能与东南部菲律宾板块的俯冲有关;揭示近千年来粤东海岸和珠江三角洲地壳垂直运动有长期隆升趋势,而近三十年的观测结果则显示下沉,推测该差异与人类活动导致的沉降有关.     

冰川均衡调整(GIA)的研究

冰川均衡调整对固体地球物理学、大地测量学、地貌学、海洋学、冰川学、气候变化、水资源、天文学和考古学等学科具有重要的意义,通过其综述性介绍,以吸引我国地学界的注意和兴趣.本文结合作者和国内外研究成果,全方位地阐述了冰川均衡调整研究的完整内涵,首先给出了冰川均衡调整的完整概念,探讨了冰川均衡调整对冰后地壳运动、全球海平面变化、地球重力场、地球旋转运动和应力状态的影响,再分析了冰川均衡调整研究的科学目标和冰川均衡调整研究的历史与现状,最后指出了冰川均衡调整研究的未来发展方向.     

联合GRACE和ICESat数据分离南极冰川均衡调整(GIA)信号

2002年发射的GRACE重力卫星为南极冰盖质量平衡提供了一种新的测量方式,但由于南极GIA模型的不确定较大,进而影响GRACE结果的可靠性.本文联合2003-2009年的GRACE和ICESat等数据实现了南极GIA信号的分离,联合方法所分离的GIA不依赖于不确定性很大的冰负荷等假设模型,而是直接基于卫星观测数据估算而来的,具有更大的可靠性.在分离过程中,本文提出了冰流速度加权改正法和GPS球谐拟合改正法对GIA结果进行精化,同时引入了南极GPS观测站的位移数据对分离的GIA进行详细的评估和验证,GPS验证表明经过冰流速度加权和GPS球谐拟合双改正后的GIA结果精度明显得到提高.最后本文利用所分离的GIA对GRACE和ICESat结果进行了改正,得到2003-2009年南极冰盖质量变化的趋势为-66.7±54.5 Gt/a（GRACE）和-77.2±21.5 Gt/a（ICESat）,相比采用其他的GIA模型,本文的GIA结果使GRACE和ICESat这两种不同观测技术得到的南极冰盖质量变化结果更加趋于一致.     

Glacial isostatic adjustment in Fennoscandia from GRACE data and comparison with geodynamical models

The Earth’s gravity field observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission shows variations due to the integral effect of mass variations in the atmosphere, hydrosphere and geosphere. Several institutions, such as the GeoForschungsZentrum (GFZ) Potsdam, the University of Texas at Austin, Center for Space Research (CSR) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, provide GRACE monthly solutions, which differ slightly due to the application of different reduction models and centre-specific processing schemes. The GRACE data are used to investigate the mass variations in Fennoscandia, an area which is strongly influenced by glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Hence the focus is set on the computation of secular trends. Different filters (e.g. isotropic and non-isotropic filters) are discussed for the removal of high frequency noise to permit the extraction of the GIA signal. The resulting GRACE based mass variations are compared to global hydrology models (WGHM, LaDWorld) in order to (a) separate possible hydrological signals and (b) validate the hydrology models with regard to long period and secular components. In addition, a pattern matching algorithm is applied to localise the uplift centre, and finally the GRACE signal is compared with the results from a geodynamical modelling. The GRACE data clearly show temporal gravity variations in Fennoscandia. The secular variations are in good agreement with former studies and other independent data. The uplift centre is located over the Bothnian Bay, and the whole uplift area comprises the Scandinavian Peninsula and Finland. The secular variations derived from the GFZ, CSR and JPL monthly solutions differ up to 20%, which is not statistically significant, and the largest signal of about 1.2 Gal/year is obtained from the GFZ solution. Besides the GIA signal, two peaks with positive trend values of about 0.8 Gal/year exist in central eastern Europe, which are not GIA-induced, and also not explainable by the hydrology models. This may indicate that the recent global hydrology models have to be revised with respect to long period and secular components. Finally, the GRACE uplift signal is also in quite good agreement with the results from a simple geodynamical modelling.     

Using postglacial sea level, crustal velocities and gravity-rate-of-change to constrain the influence of thermal effects on mantle lateral heterogeneities

Lateral heterogeneities in the mantle can be caused by thermal, chemical and non-isotropic pre-stress effects. Here, we investigate the possibility of using observations of the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) process to constrain the thermal contribution to lateral variations in mantle viscosity. In particular, global historic relative sea level, GPS in Laurentide and Fennoscandia, altimetry together with tide-gauge data in the Great Lakes area, and GRACE data in Laurentide are used. The lateral viscosity perturbations are inferred from the seismic tomography model S20A by inserting the scaling factor β to determine the contribution of thermal effects versus compositional heterogeneity and non-isotropic pre-stress effects on lateral heterogeneity in mantle viscosity. When β = 1, lateral velocity variations are caused by thermal effects alone. With β < 1, the contribution of thermal effect decreases, so that for β = 0, there is no lateral viscosity variation and the Earth is laterally homogeneous. These lateral viscosity variations are superposed on four different reference models which differ significantly in the lower mantle viscosity. The Coupled Laplace Finite Element method is used to predict the GIA response on a spherical, self-gravitating, compressible, viscoelastic Earth with self-gravitating oceans, induced by the ICE-4G deglaciation model.Results show that the effect of β on uplift rates and gravity rate-of-change is not simple and involves the trade-off between the contribution of lateral viscosity variations in the transition zone and in the lower mantle. Models with small viscosity contrast in the lower mantle cannot explain the observed uplift rates in Laurentide and Fennoscandia. However, the RF3S20 model with a reference viscosity profile simplified from Peltier's VM2 with the value of β around 0.2–0.4 is found to explain most of the global RSL data, the uplift rates in Laurentide and Fennoscandia and the BIFROST horizontal velocity data. In addition, the changes in GIA signals caused by changes in the value of β are large enough to be detected by the data, although uncertainty in other parameters in the GIA models still exists. This may encourage us to further utilize GIA observations to constrain the thermal effect on mantle lateral heterogeneity as geodetic and satellite gravity measurements are improved.     

Postglacial isostatic adjustment in a self-gravitating spherical earth with power-law rheology

Since microphysics cannot say definitively whether the rheology of the mantle is linear or non-linear, the aim of this paper is to constrain mantle rheology from observations related to the glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) process—namely relative sea-levels (RSLs), land uplift rate from GPS and gravity-rate-of-change from GRACE. We consider three earth model types that can have power-law rheology (n = 3 or 4) in the upper mantle, the lower mantle or throughout the mantle. For each model type, a range of A parameter in the creep law will be explored and the predicted GIA responses will be compared to the observations to see which value of A has the potential to explain all the data simultaneously. The coupled Laplace finite-element (CLFE) method is used to calculate the response of a 3D spherical self-gravitating viscoelastic Earth to forcing by the ICE-4G ice history model with ocean loads in self-gravitating oceans. Results show that ice thickness in Laurentide needs to increase significantly or delayed by 2 ka, otherwise the predicted uplift rate, gravity rate-of-change and the amplitude of the RSL for sites inside the ice margin of Laurentide are too low to be able to explain the observations. However, the ice thickness elsewhere outside Laurentide needs to be slightly modified in order to explain the global RSL data outside Laurentide. If the ice model is modified in this way, then the results of this paper indicate that models with power-law rheology in the lower mantle (with A  10⁻³⁵ Pa⁻³ s⁻¹ for n = 3) have the highest potential to simultaneously explain all the observed RSL, uplift rate and gravity rate-of-change data than the other model types.     

Glacial isostatic adjustment at the Laurentide ice sheet margin: Models and observations in the Great Lakes region

Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) modelling in North America relies on relative sea level information which is primarily obtained from areas far away from the uplift region. The lack of accurate geodetic observations in the Great Lakes region, which is located in the transition zone between uplift and subsidence due to the deglaciation of the Laurentide ice sheet, has prevented more detailed studies of this former margin of the ice sheet. Recently, observations of vertical crustal motion from improved GPS network solutions and combined tide gauge and satellite altimetry solutions have become available. This study compares these vertical motion observations with predictions obtained from 70 different GIA models. The ice sheet margin is distinct from the centre and far field of the uplift because the sensitivity of the GIA process towards Earth parameters such as mantle viscosity is very different. Specifically, the margin area is most sensitive to the uppermost mantle viscosity and allows for better constraints of this parameter. The 70 GIA models compared herein have different ice loading histories (ICE-3/4/5G) and Earth parameters including lateral heterogeneities. The root-mean-square differences between the 6 best models and the two sets of observations (tide gauge/altimetry and GPS) are 0.66 and 1.57 mm/yr, respectively. Both sets of independent observations are highly correlated and show a very similar fit to the models, which indicates their consistent quality. Therefore, both data sets can be considered as a means for constraining and assessing the quality of GIA models in the Great Lakes region and the former margin of the Laurentide ice sheet.     

Glacial isostatic adjustment in 3-D earth models: Implications for the analysis of tide gauge records along the U.S. east coast

Tide gauge records of recent sea-level change along the U.S. east coast have received significant attention within the literature of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Geographic trends in these tide gauge rates are not reduced by a GIA correction based on a commonly adopted radial viscosity profile (characterized, in particular, by a lower mantle viscosity 1−2×10²¹ Pa s), and this has led to speculation that the residual trends reflect contributions from neotectonics or oceanographic processes. While the trends can be significantly reduced by adopting an Earth model with a stiffer lower mantle, such a model appears to be incompatible with independent constraints from post-glacial decay times in Hudson Bay. We use a finite-element model of the GIA process to investigate whether 3-D viscosity variations superimposed onto the “common” radial viscosity profile may provide a route to reconciling the east coast sea-level trends. We find that the specific 3-D structure we impose has little impact on the geographic trends in the GIA-corrected rates. However, we do find that the imposed lateral variations in lower mantle viscosity introduce a nearly uniform upward shift of 0.5 mm/yr in GIA-induced sea-level rates along the U.S. east coast. Thus, inferences of regional (U.S. east coast) sea-level rise due to modern melting of ice reservoirs, based on tide gauge rates corrected using 1-D GIA models, may be significantly biased by this simplifying assumption.     

High-harmonic geoid signatures related to glacial isostatic adjustment and their detectability by GOCE

The Earth’s asthenosphere and lower continental crust can regionally have viscosities that are one to several orders of magnitude smaller than typical mantle viscosities. As a consequence, such shallow low-viscosity layers could induce high-harmonic (spherical harmonics 50–200) gravity and geoid anomalies due to remaining isostasy deviations following Late-Pleistocene glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). Such high-harmonic geoid and gravity signatures would depend also on the detailed ice and meltwater loading distribution and history.ESA’s Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite mission, planned for launch in Summer 2008, is designed to map the quasi-static geoid with centimeter accuracy and gravity anomalies with milligal accuracy at a resolution of 100 km or better. This might offer the possibility of detecting gravity and geoid effects of low-viscosity shallow earth layers and differences of the effects of various Pleistocene ice decay scenarios. For example, our predictions show that for a typical low-viscosity crustal zone GOCE should be able to discern differences between ice-load histories down to length scales of about 150 km.One of the major challenges in interpreting such high-harmonic, regional-scale, geoid signatures in GOCE solutions will be to discriminate GIA-signatures from various other solid-earth contributions. It might be of help here that the high-harmonic geoid and gravity signatures form quite characteristic 2D patterns, depending on both ice load and low-viscosity zone model parameters.     

Coastal and inland karst morphologies driven by sea level stands: a GIS based method for their evaluation

Sea level is the base level for groundwater circulation in coastal aquifers. The evolution of karst surface landforms and subsurface drainage systems in these aquifers has been conditioned in geological time by tectonics and glacio‐eustatic sea‐level changes. Present morpho‐structural settings and the type/distribution of karst surface and subsurface forms have developed in different carbonate formations according to differences in lithology, climate and exposure time, all driving the intensity of morphologic and karst processes. The repeated and significant changes of groundwater level linked to ‘sea‐level changes’ have had the most important role in driving the continuous evolution of karstic drainage systems, and has resulted in most cases in a multiphase karst. This study aims at defining a general method for identifying, in karst coastal settings, the elevations of flat or low topographic gradient surfaces (using morphometric analysis of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and geographical information systems (GISs), and their comparison with elevations of distinctive karstic levels (passages, lateral solution cavities) observed in vertical shafts and horizontal caves. Of the elevations of flat or low topographic gradient surfaces only those agreeing, within ±10 m or ±20 m, with elevation ranges marked by the high frequency of distinctive karst levels were considered as representative of the more probable past sea‐level stands. The method is applied to a regional coastal carbonate formation in southern Italy, by using a 10 m DEM and information on 140 complex caves and 85 shafts. Of the 15 elevations indicated by DEM analysis [620, 600, 470, 450, 425, 385, 355, 315, 270, 250, 205, 180, 150, 110, and 70 m above sea level (a.s.l.)], 13 match clearly those highlighted by significant frequencies of distinctive karstic levels. These elevations are validated by comparison to the elevation of terraces and karst plains indicated in the literature. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.