A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness
The traditional method for interpolating ice thickness data from airborne radar sounding surveys onto regular grids is to employ geostatistical techniques such as kriging. While this approach provides continuous maps of ice thickness, it generates products that are not consistent with ice flow dynam...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt4420869v 2023-06-11T04:11:54+02:00 A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness Morlighem, M Rignot, E Seroussi, H Larour, E Dhia, H Ben Aubry, D n/a - n/a 2011-10-01 application/pdf https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4420869v unknown eScholarship, University of California qt4420869v https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4420869v CC-BY Geophysical Research Letters, vol 38, iss 19 Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences article 2011 ftcdlib 2023-05-29T17:59:16Z The traditional method for interpolating ice thickness data from airborne radar sounding surveys onto regular grids is to employ geostatistical techniques such as kriging. While this approach provides continuous maps of ice thickness, it generates products that are not consistent with ice flow dynamics and are impractical for high resolution ice flow simulations. Here, we present a novel approach that combines sparse ice thickness data collected by airborne radar sounding profilers with high resolution swath mapping of ice velocity derived from satellite synthetic-aperture interferometry to obtain a high resolution map of ice thickness that conserves mass and minimizes the departure from observations. We apply this approach to the case of Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden (79North) Glacier, a major outlet glacier in northeast Greenland that has been relatively stable in recent decades. The results show that our mass conserving method removes the anomalies in mass flux divergence, yields interpolated data that are within about 5% of the original data, and produces thickness maps that are directly usable in high spatial-resolution, high-order ice flow models. We discuss the application of this method to the broad and detailed radar surveys of ice sheet and glacier thickness. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union. Article in Journal/Newspaper glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden University of California: eScholarship Greenland Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden ENVELOPE(-21.500,-21.500,79.500,79.500) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Morlighem, M Rignot, E Seroussi, H Larour, E Dhia, H Ben Aubry, D A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
topic_facet |
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
The traditional method for interpolating ice thickness data from airborne radar sounding surveys onto regular grids is to employ geostatistical techniques such as kriging. While this approach provides continuous maps of ice thickness, it generates products that are not consistent with ice flow dynamics and are impractical for high resolution ice flow simulations. Here, we present a novel approach that combines sparse ice thickness data collected by airborne radar sounding profilers with high resolution swath mapping of ice velocity derived from satellite synthetic-aperture interferometry to obtain a high resolution map of ice thickness that conserves mass and minimizes the departure from observations. We apply this approach to the case of Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden (79North) Glacier, a major outlet glacier in northeast Greenland that has been relatively stable in recent decades. The results show that our mass conserving method removes the anomalies in mass flux divergence, yields interpolated data that are within about 5% of the original data, and produces thickness maps that are directly usable in high spatial-resolution, high-order ice flow models. We discuss the application of this method to the broad and detailed radar surveys of ice sheet and glacier thickness. Copyright 2011 by the American Geophysical Union. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Morlighem, M Rignot, E Seroussi, H Larour, E Dhia, H Ben Aubry, D |
author_facet |
Morlighem, M Rignot, E Seroussi, H Larour, E Dhia, H Ben Aubry, D |
author_sort |
Morlighem, M |
title |
A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
title_short |
A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
title_full |
A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
title_fullStr |
A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
title_full_unstemmed |
A mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
title_sort |
mass conservation approach for mapping glacier ice thickness |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2011 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4420869v |
op_coverage |
n/a - n/a |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-21.500,-21.500,79.500,79.500) |
geographic |
Greenland Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden |
geographic_facet |
Greenland Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden |
genre |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden |
genre_facet |
glacier Greenland Ice Sheet Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden |
op_source |
Geophysical Research Letters, vol 38, iss 19 |
op_relation |
qt4420869v https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4420869v |
op_rights |
CC-BY |
_version_ |
1768387354041516032 |