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Mapping Sea Ice Surface Topography in High Fidelity with ICESat-2
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  • Sinéad Farrell,
  • Kyle Duncan,
  • Ellen Buckley,
  • Jacqueline Richter-Menge,
  • Ruohan Li
Sinéad Farrell
University of Maryland College Park

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Kyle Duncan
University of Maryland
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Ellen Buckley
University of Maryland
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Jacqueline Richter-Menge
US Arctic Research Commission & University of Alaska Fairbanks
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Ruohan Li
University of Maryland
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Abstract

The Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) on ICESat-2 offers a new remote sensing capability to measure complex sea ice surface topography. We demonstrate the retrieval of six sea ice parameters from ICESat-2/ATLAS data: surface roughness, ridge height, ridge frequency, melt pond depth, floe size distribution and lead frequency. Our results establish that these properties can be observed in high fidelity, across broad geographic regions and ice conditions. We resolve features as narrow as 7 m, and achieve a vertical height precision of 0.01 m, representing a significant advance in resolution over previous satellite altimeters. ICESat-2 employs a year-round observation strategy spanning all seasons, across both the Arctic and Southern Oceans. Because of its higher resolution, coupled with the spatial and temporal extent of data acquisition, ICESat-2 observations may be used to investigate time-varying, dynamic and thermodynamic sea ice processes.
16 Nov 2020Published in Geophysical Research Letters volume 47 issue 21. 10.1029/2020GL090708