Monitoring of the Greenland ice sheet using a broadband seismometer network: the GLISN project

Abstract

Global climate change is currently causing melting of the Greenland ice sheet. Recently, a new type of seismic event, referred to as a "glacial earthquake", has been recognized. Such earthquakes are generated by the movements of large masses of ice within the terminal regions of glacier, and represent a new approach for monitoring ice sheet dynamics. In 2009, the multinational GreenLand Ice Sheet monitoring Network (GLISN), a large broadband seismological network in and around Greenland, was initiated to monitor these events. Japan, a partner country of the GLISN project, has been sending a field team to Greenland each year since 2011, when a joint USA and Japanese team first established a dual seismic-GPS station (station code: ICESG-GLS2) on the Greenland ice sheet. In 2012, the same team contributed to the maintenance of ICESG-GLS2, as well as two other stations (NUUK and DY2G-GLS1). The quality of the long-period seismic waveform data obtained by these stations has been checked by comparing the data with global synthetic seismograms. Results indicate that the data from the three stations have not been substantially affected by noise, and that the quality is well controlled.