The Totten Glacier (TG) system drains 10% of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet [Rignot and Thomas, 2002], with enough ice to cause global sea level to rise by 6 m [Roberts et al., 2011]. TG has undergone substantial modulation of both flow and ice thickness since 1989 [Li et al. 2016], with retreat of the grounding line observed since 1996 [Li et al. 2015]; however, the origins of the changes remain poorly understood. This uncertainty hampers the reliable quantification of future risk due to the fact that only a few days of fieldwork have been undertaken on the glacier in the last four decades. We aim to improve our understanding of ice-ocean interactions and the mass balance of the TG system through acquiring new ground-based data across the ice shelf and grounding zone region, and also reoccupying nearby historic geophysical sites [Allen and Whitworth, 1970].
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NSF Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE)
and NSF Seismological Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (SAGE).
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U.S. National Science Foundation.