Variations of the Arctic Ice-Snow Cover in Nonhomogenous Geopotential

The overall mapping of glacier elevation changes, the integral geodetic estimation of mass balance and the factor analysis of mutual variations in land and sea ice cover in the Barents-Kara region (BKR), Eurasian Arctic addressed in this paper were performed using a synergetic combination of differential interferometry and altimetry. Careful statistical comparison of the glacier change signal with available maps of gravity anomalies, sea ice charts and long-term rows of glacioclimatic, meteorological and tidal data gave a substantial evidence of cryogravic dependences in the study region. High positive (≥ +0.91) spatial correlation between local extremities in glacier change signal, sea ice concentration and gravity anomalies was determined, explained and formulated using the basic concepts of hydrostatic stress and converging precipitation. It was concluded that significant lateral variations of geopotential influence the local intensity of solid precipitation, snow accumulation rate and sea ice grow, glacier regime and character of glacioclimatic changes