Greenlandic Coastal Sea Ice Freeboard and Thickness From CryoSat-2 SARIn Data

Abstract

and relevant to society in connection to sea level rise, fishery, shipping and other off-shore activities (Pugh and Woodworth, 2014). On the other hand, altimetry in coastal areas has proven to be more challenging than over open ocean due to e.g. land footprint contamination and degradation of geophysical corrections (Cipollini et al., 2010; Saraceno et al., 2008; Gomez-Enri et al., 2010). In the last 8 years, ESA's CryoSat-2 (CS2) radar altimetry mission has made a big contribution to coastal altimetry. In fact, it enabled to measure sea surface height closer to the coast than conventional altimeters previously did, using SAR and SAR Interferometric (SARIn) acquisition modes to reduce footprint contamination. This study builds on previous work by Abulaitijiang et al., (2015) and Di Bella et al., (in review) and attempts to estimate sea ice freeboard and thickness using level 1b SARIn data acquired by CS2 along the Western and Northern coasts of Greenland. The challenges and limitations of SARIn altimetry in coastal areas will be identified with the support of airborne and in-situ validation data from the CryoVEx and Operation IceBridge campaigns. References: Abulaitijiang, A., Andersen, O. B., & Stenseng, L. (2015). Coastal sea level from inland CryoSat-2 interferometric SAR altimetry. Geophysical Research Letters, 42(6), 1841-1847. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL063131 Cipollini, P., et al. (2010), The role of altimetry in coastal observing systems, in Proceedings of ceanObs'09: Sustained Ocean Observations and Information for Society, Venice, Italy, 21-25 Sept. 2009, vol. 2, edited by J. Hall, D. E. Harrison, and D. Stammer, pp. 181-191, ESA Publ., Noordwijk, Netherlands. Di Bella, A., Skourup, H., Forsberg, R., Uncertainty Reduction of Arctic Sea Ice Freeboard from CryoSat-2 Interferometric Mode. Advances in Space Research- Special Issue on CryoSat- 2, in review. Gomez-Enri, J., Vignudelli, S., Quartly, G.D., Gommenginger, C.P., Cipollini, P., Challenor, P.G., Benveniste, J., 2010. Modeling Envisat RA-2 waveforms in the coastal zone: case study of calm water contamination. IEEE Geosci. Rem. Sens. Lett. 7 (3), 474- 478. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2009.2039193.11 Pugh, D., Woodworth, P.L., 2014. Sea-Level Science: Understanding Tides, Surges, Tsunamis and Mean Sea- Level Changes. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, U.K. Saraceno, M., Strub, P.T., Kosro, P.M., 2008. Estimates of sea surface height and near-surface alongshore coastal currents from combina- tions of altimeters and tide gauges. J. Geophys. Res. Oceans 113, C11013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2008JC004756.