The Greenland Ice Sheet CCI project aims to maximize the impact of ESA satellite data on climate research, by analysing data from ESA Earth Observation missions such as ERS, Envisat, CryoSat, GRACE and the new Sentinel series of satellites. Over the last decade, the Greenland Ice Sheet has shown rapid change, characterized by rapid thinning along the margins, accelerating outlet glaciers, and overall increasing mass loss. The state of the Greenland Ice Sheet is of global importance, and has consequently been included in the ESA CCI Programme as a monitored Essential Climate Variable (ECV).

The project is producing data products of the following five parameters, which are important in characterizing the Greenland Ice Sheet as an Essential Climate Variable: Surface Elevation Change (SEC) gridded data from radar altimetry; Ice Velocity (IV) gridded data from synthetic aperture radar interferometry and feature tracking; Calving Front Location (CFL) time series of marine-terminating glaciers; Grounding Line Location (GLL) time series of marine-terminating glaciers; Gravimetry Mass Balance (GMB) maps and time series.