Articles | Volume 12, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-71-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-71-2018
Research article
 | 
10 Jan 2018
Research article |  | 10 Jan 2018

Using satellite laser ranging to measure ice mass change in Greenland and Antarctica

Jennifer A. Bonin, Don P. Chambers, and Minkang Cheng

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Status: closed
Status: closed
AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment
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Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision
AR by Jennifer Bonin on behalf of the Authors (02 Nov 2017)  Author's response   Manuscript 
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (09 Nov 2017) by Etienne Berthier
RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (22 Nov 2017)
RR by Kosuke Heki (27 Nov 2017)
ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (28 Nov 2017) by Etienne Berthier
AR by Jennifer Bonin on behalf of the Authors (29 Nov 2017)  Author's response   Manuscript 
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Short summary
Before GRACE in 2002, few large-scale measurements of mass change over Greenland and Antarctica existed. We use a least squares inversion of satellite laser ranging (SLR) data to expand the polar mass change time series back to 1994. We explain the technique and analyze its errors, then apply it to SLR and GRACE data. We can estimate the summed mass change over Greenland and Antarctica with low uncertainty. SLR's noise causes interannual errors, but the 20-year estimate is reliable.