Four decades of Antarctic surface elevation changes from multi-mission satellite altimetry
<p>We developed a multi-mission satellite altimetry analysis over the Antarctic Ice Sheet which comprises Seasat, Geosat, ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, ICESat and CryoSat-2. After a consistent reprocessing and a stepwise calibration of the inter-mission offsets, we obtained monthly grids of multi-mis...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2019-02-01
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| Series: | The Cryosphere |
| Online Access: | https://www.the-cryosphere.net/13/427/2019/tc-13-427-2019.pdf |
| Summary: | <p>We developed a multi-mission satellite altimetry analysis over the Antarctic
Ice Sheet which comprises Seasat, Geosat, ERS-1, ERS-2, Envisat, ICESat and
CryoSat-2. After a consistent reprocessing and a stepwise calibration of the
inter-mission offsets, we obtained monthly grids of multi-mission surface
elevation change (SEC) with respect to the reference epoch
09/2010 (in the format of month/year) from 1978 to 2017. A validation with independent elevation
changes from in situ and airborne observations as well as a comparison with a
firn model proves that the different missions and observation modes have been
successfully combined to a seamless multi-mission time series. For coastal
East Antarctica, even Seasat and Geosat provide reliable information and,
hence, allow for the analysis of four decades of elevation changes. The
spatial and temporal resolution of our result allows for the identification
of when and where significant changes in elevation occurred. These time
series add detailed information to the evolution of surface elevation in such
key regions as Pine Island Glacier, Totten Glacier, Dronning Maud Land or
Lake Vostok. After applying a density mask, we calculated time series of mass
changes and found that the Antarctic Ice Sheet north of 81.5<span class="inline-formula"><sup>∘</sup></span> S was
losing mass at an average rate of <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">85</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">16</mn></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="46pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="51341af97eb1b7f9a390e89353c0da64"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-13-427-2019-ie00001.svg" width="46pt" height="10pt" src="tc-13-427-2019-ie00001.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> Gt yr<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span> between 1992 and
2017, which accelerated to <span class="inline-formula"><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M4" display="inline" overflow="scroll" dspmath="mathml"><mrow><mo>-</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">137</mn><mo>±</mo><mn mathvariant="normal">25</mn></mrow></math><span><svg:svg xmlns:svg="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" width="52pt" height="10pt" class="svg-formula" dspmath="mathimg" md5hash="5fe80869220ed8da3639b6da27b5db8d"><svg:image xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xlink:href="tc-13-427-2019-ie00002.svg" width="52pt" height="10pt" src="tc-13-427-2019-ie00002.png"/></svg:svg></span></span> Gt yr<span class="inline-formula"><sup>−1</sup></span> after 2010.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1994-0416 1994-0424 |