ORIGINAL ARTICLE
GNSS sites at Hornsund reveal increase of land uplift rate due to recent acceleration of deglaciation at Svalbard
1
Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, Warsaw University of Technology, pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661 Warszawa, Poland
A - Research concept and design; B - Collection and/or assembly of data; C - Data analysis and interpretation; D - Writing the article; E - Critical revision of the article; F - Final approval of article
Submission date: 2025-11-08
Final revision date: 2025-12-10
Acceptance date: 2025-12-10
Publication date: 2025-12-15
Corresponding author
Marcin Rajner
Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, Warsaw University of Technology, pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661, Warszawa, Poland
Faculty of Geodesy and Cartography, Warsaw University of Technology, pl. Politechniki 1, 00-661, Warszawa, Poland
Reports on Geodesy and Geoinformatics 2025;120:96-100
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses recent and up-to-date uplift rates at Polish Polar Station at Hornsund (SW Svalbard). Twenty years of continuous Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) measurements was used to infer contemporary vertical crust deformation due to viscous and elastic response to variable loads. Using environmental models good agreement of observed land uplift with numerical predictions was found. Most of the vertical change stem from Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA), Little Ice Age (LIA) and Present Day Ice Melting (PDIM). Significant increase of uplift was observed in the last few years from 9.0 mm yr−1 up to 11.5 mm yr−1. This can be attributed to increase of ice mass loss at Svalbard archipelago of additional 10 Gt yr−1. In case of GNSS site at Hornsund 80% of PDIM comes from melting of glaciers at south Spitsbergen.
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