Derivations for Coupled GPS-Iceberg-Sea Level Anomaly Model Projecting Sea Level Rise

Overview

As a major source of sea-level rise, iceberg melting increases freshwater input and can also cause regional water imbalances, scarcity, and natural disasters. In this paper, we use a more accurate and affordable technology–the Global Positioning System (GPS)–to calculate iceberg melt rates and create a theoretical, global intermediate complexity model to simulate projections of sea-level changes over the 21st century. The model includes a GPS-derived iceberg melt algorithm to account for the four main types of iceberg melting, a procedure for converting melt rates into sea level anomalies since 2024, and an explanation for future work based on differences in calculated melt rates versus expected values. This resulted in total iceberg melt rates between 0.08 and 1.02 m/d calculated over a 9-day survey with a correlation of 0.9965 plotted against iceberg velocity along with values for basal, ablation, wave erosion, and lateral melt rates. When the total melt rate was plotted against 11 environmental variables, some variables like albedo and wind velocity had the strongest correlations with total iceberg melting while the contribution of carbon dioxide concentration, sea surface temperature, and more was minor as they were limited by the scope of available data. There were considerable differences in the calculated and expected melt rates once plotted in graphs, but they were largely translation or mirrored differences in distribution. In future work, this paper’s anomaly model will be trained and validated via future GPS measurements to build a more robust 3D Earth system model.

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• AJAS 2025 Category not listed

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