Extraction and analysis of elevation changes in Antarctic ice sheet from CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3 radar altimeters

Abstract

New radar altimeters have supported elevation modeling with greater accuracy and extended periods in recent years. Sentinel-3 has been rarely used in previous studies for monitoring the Antarctic ice sheet. The CryoSat-2 and Sentinel-3 satellite radar altimeter data were combined to extract the elevation changes in the Antarctic ice sheet. First, a subregional data filtering method based on a clustering algorithm was proposed to improve the accuracy of the elevation change results for the outliers in the original measurements. Next, an improved model-fitting model that incorporated multiple parameters was used to extract elevation changes, and the results were validated using airborne laser altimetry data and ICESat-2 data. The average changes in the Antarctic ice sheet elevation from 2016 to 2019 were −4.3 ± 0.9 cm / y. The elevation changes of the ice shelf edges with large slopes and complex topography were much larger than the interior. Some specific areas showed substantial elevation changes. The most significant surface decreases occurred at the Pine Island Glacier and the Totten Glacier, while a pronounced surface heightening existed at the Kamb Ice Stream. We reveal an effective method for combining Antarctic ice sheet data from new radar altimeters. This method supports the long-term monitoring of the Antarctic ice sheet and global climate change in the future.