Bed elevation and bathymetry (left), and ice thickness (right). Image from A new bed elevation data set for Greenland in The Cryosphere by Bamber et al. doi: 10.5194/tc-7-499-2013.

PARCA is a NASA-led, international meeting of scientists studying the Greenland Ice Sheet to understand its contributions to global sea level rise. Centered on satellite and aircraft remote sensing, the meeting also covers field studies, instrument networks, and modeling. PARCA is open to participation from any scientist doing relevant research; including, but not limited to glaciology, geology, geophysics, hydrology, oceanography, and atmospheric sciences. Typically held in January, the meeting is also the major planning venue for fieldwork in Greenland with a range of US, European, and other international participants.

History

For over two decades, PARCA has provided an annual venue to discuss results and develop new projects for research on the Greenland Ice Sheet. Begun by NASA in 1993 as the Program for Arctic Regional Climate Assessment, PARCA’s goal was and remains understanding the changes occurring to the Greenland Ice Sheet. Within a decade of its start, PARCA had produced the first accurate assessment of the ice sheet’s negative mass balance and further NASA research documented the acceleration in ice loss from both glacial flow and surface melting. NASA’s Greenland research portfolio has grown dramatically since PARCA’s beginnings with new satellite and aircraft missions including ICESat (2003-2009), IceBridge (2009-2020), Oceans Melting Greenland (2016-2021), and ICESat-2 (expected to launch 2018), as well as a range of research projects, field studies and instrumentation networks, and communal efforts to link Greenland to global models. Interagency and international collaboration is a hallmark of the program with joint projects and meetings involving the US National Science Foundation and many European agencies. Through it all, the annual PARCA meeting has remained the leading international conference on change in the Greenland Ice Sheet.