Grounding Line / Zone of Antarctic Ice Sheet

Grounding Line of Antarctic Ice Sheet — Antarctic Grounding Line from Differential Satellite Radar Interferometry. Copyright: UHH/CEN/AJB

Topics

Access

UNRESTRICTED:

RESTRICTED: This link to the data set is only available for a restricted user group. The data set is only accessible in CEN/MPI net or accessible from external nets with a customer account. Please contact ICDC if you would like to access this data from outside the network.

Data access via file system: /data/icdc/ice_and_snow/measures_antarctic_groundingline_v02/

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Description

The grounding line of the Antarctic Ice Sheet is that part where the glaciers exporting the ice down the continent loose contact to the ground and become a floating ice shelf. Examples of such ice shelves are the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, the Ross Ice Shelf, and the Amery Ice Shelf.

Accurate knowledge of the grounding line is important for a correct calculation of a) the mass budget of the Antarctic ice sheet and the ice shelves, and b) the amount of melt water released into the ocean due to melt of the ice by the relatively warm water entering the caverns underneath the floating ice shelf.

The retrieval of the grounding line position is based using differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR). Basically one seeks to find the transition zone between the merely constantly downslope moving glacier on land and the floating ice shelf, which is influenced by ocean currents and tides and therefore shows a substantial, temporally variable vertical motion.

This data set (MEaSUREs version 2.1) is based on data of the following satellite SAR sensors: RADARSAT-1 und -2 SAR, ALOS Palsar, ERS1/2 SAR, COSMO SkyMed, und Sentinel-1.

Details can be taken from the references down below and the grounding line webpage.

Grounding lines are subject to movement due to tidal fluctuations, providing polylines for both upstream and downstream boundaries. A new data set of these Antarctic Grounding Line Zones has been created; see the grounding zone webpage.

Last update of data set at ICDC: March 6, 2026

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Parameters

Parameters of the Ice Sheet Grounding Line data set
Name	Unit
latitude	deg
longitude	deg
satellite sensors and acquistion dates	-

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Coverage, spatial and temporal resolution

Period and temporal resolution:

Grounding Line: Feb. 1992 to November 2025
Grounding Zone: 2018 to 2020
no temporal resolution, composite of data from the mentioned time period

Coverage and spatial resolution:

Antarctic
Spatial resolution: variable, 25 m to 120 m, depending on the satellite sensor used
Geographic longitude: between 0°E to 360°E, about 75% of the Antarctic ground line is covered
Geographic latitude: south of 60°S
Altitude: 0.0 m

Format:

ESRI ArcGIS Shapefile and Geopackage

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Data quality

The data set does not contain an uncertainty estimation. Uncertainties in grounding line location are of the order of 100 m and are based on, e.g., i) inaccurate geolocation, and ii) too coarse spatial resolution. Since the data set is based on satellite data acquired at different spatial resolution, the uncertainty of the obtained grounding line position varies. Therefore, the data set lists the used sensor for every grounding line position. Using the new data set of the grounding line zone can help to better understand the uncertainties in the groundline position caused by tidal fluctuations.

Note: Not the entire Antarctic ice sheet ends in an ice shelf and not all ice shelves are mapped. Therefore the data set does not cover whole Antarctica.

We recommend the documentation and the publications listed in "references" down below for further reading.

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Contact

Eric Rignot
University of California, Irvine
Department of Earth System Science
Croul Hall, Irvine, California 92697, USA
email: eric.rignot (at) jpl.nasa.gov

NSIDC User Services
National Snow and Ice Data Center
CIRES, 449 UCB
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0449, USA
email: nsidc (at) nsidc.org

Stefan Kern
ICDC / Department of Earth System Sciences / University of Hamburg
E-Mail: stefan.kern (at) uni-hamburg.de

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References

Literature:

Documentation of the grounding line data set at NSIDC, https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0498/versions/2 [last accessed: 2026-03-05]
Documentation of the grounding zone data set at NSIDC, https://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0778/versions/1 [last accessed: 2026-03-05]
Rignot, E., J. Mouginot, and B. Scheuchl. 2011. Antarctic Grounding Line Mapping from Differential Satellite Radar Interferometry, Geophysical Research Letters. 38. L10504. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047109
Rignot, E., J. Mouginot, M. Morlighem, H. Seroussi, and B. Scheuchl. 2014. Widespread, rapid grounding line retreat of Pine Island, Thwaites, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, West Antarctica, from 1992 to 2011, Geophysical Research Letters. 41. 3502-3509. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2014GL060140
Li, X., E. Rignot, M. Morlighem, J. Mouginot, and B. Scheuchl. 2015. Grounding line retreat of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica, 1996 to 2013. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42: 8049–8056. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015GL065701
Scheuchl, B., J. Mouginot, E. Rignot, M. Morlighem, and A. Khazendar. 2016. Grounding line retreat of Pope, Smith, and Kohler Glaciers, West Antarctica, measured with Sentinel-1a radar interferometry data. Geophys. Res. Lett. 43: 8572–8579. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069287

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Data citation

Please cite the data as follows:

Grounding Line: Rignot, E., Mouginot, J. & Scheuchl, B. (2016). MEaSUREs Antarctic Grounding Line from Differential Satellite Radar Interferometry. (NSIDC-0498, Version 2). [Data Set]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/IKBWW4RYHF1Q . [describe subset used if applicable]. Date Accessed 03-05-2026.

Grounding Zone: Rignot, E., Mouginot, J. & Scheuchl, B. (2023). MEaSUREs Grounding Zone of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. (NSIDC-0778, Version 1). [Data Set]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/HGLT8XB480E4 . [describe subset used if applicable]. Date Accessed 03-05-2026

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