A precise estimate of the present-day ice mass balance of the Greenland ice shield requires spatio-temporally resolved knowledge on the dynamic regime of its outlet glaciers. We demonstrate for the Jakobshavn Isbra? glacier, how a combination of different geodetic and photogrammetrie techniques can be used to investigate specific phenomena of outlet glaciers like changes of the glacier front position, of the flow velocity and the ice surface height as well as the interactions of the ice with the ocean and the solid Earth. Providing this data at a high precision and reliability, geodesy and photogrammetry deliver a very valuable contribution to Earth system research.