Ice mass change in Greenland and Antarctica between 1993 and 2013 from satellite gravity measurements

We construct long-term time series of greenland and antarctic ice sheet mass change from satellite gravity measurements. a statistical reconstruction approach is developed based on a principal component analysis (pca) to combine high-resolution spatial modes from the gravity recovery and climate experiment (grace) mission with the gravity information from conventional satellite tracking data. uncertainties of this reconstruction are rigorously assessed; they include temporal limitations for short grace measurements, spatial limitations for the low-resolution conventional tracking data measurements, and limitations of the estimated statistical relationships between low- and high-degree potential coefficients reflected in the pca modes. trends of mass variations in greenland and antarctica are assessed against a number of previous studies. the resulting time series for greenland show a higher rate of mass loss than other methods before 2000, while the antarctic ice sheet appears heavily influenced by interannual variations.