How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment
Knowledge of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps is an important prerequisite for many glaciological and hydrological investigations. A wealth of approaches has recently been presented for inferring ice thickness from characteristics of the surface. With the Ice Thickness Models...
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ftcdlib:oai:escholarship.org:ark:/13030/qt6709w6f9 2023-06-18T03:43:18+02:00 How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment Farinotti, Daniel Brinkerhoff, Douglas J Clarke, Garry KC Fürst, Johannes J Frey, Holger Gantayat, Prateek Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien Girard, Claire Huss, Matthias Leclercq, Paul W Linsbauer, Andreas Machguth, Horst Martin, Carlos Maussion, Fabien Morlighem, Mathieu Mosbeux, Cyrille Pandit, Ankur Portmann, Andrea Rabatel, Antoine Ramsankaran, RAAJ Reerink, Thomas J Sanchez, Olivier Stentoft, Peter A Kumari, Sangita Singh van Pelt, Ward JJ Anderson, Brian Benham, Toby Binder, Daniel Dowdeswell, Julian A Fischer, Andrea Helfricht, Kay Kutuzov, Stanislav Lavrentiev, Ivan McNabb, Robert Gudmundsson, G Hilmar Li, Huilin Andreassen, Liss M 949 - 970 2017-04-18 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6709w6f9 unknown eScholarship, University of California qt6709w6f9 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6709w6f9 public The Cryosphere, vol 11, iss 2 Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences article 2017 ftcdlib 2023-06-05T18:00:35Z Knowledge of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps is an important prerequisite for many glaciological and hydrological investigations. A wealth of approaches has recently been presented for inferring ice thickness from characteristics of the surface. With the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) we performed the first coordinated assessment quantifying individual model performance. A set of 17 different models showed that individual ice thickness estimates can differ considerably - locally by a spread comparable to the observed thickness. Averaging the results of multiple models, however, significantly improved the results: on average over the 21 considered test cases, comparison against direct ice thickness measurements revealed deviations on the order of 10 ± 24% of the mean ice thickness (1σ estimate). Models relying on multiple data sets - such as surface ice velocity fields, surface mass balance, or rates of ice thickness change - showed high sensitivity to input data quality. Together with the requirement of being able to handle large regions in an automated fashion, the capacity of better accounting for uncertainties in the input data will be a key for an improved next generation of ice thickness estimation approaches. Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere University of California: eScholarship |
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Open Polar |
collection |
University of California: eScholarship |
op_collection_id |
ftcdlib |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
spellingShingle |
Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences Farinotti, Daniel Brinkerhoff, Douglas J Clarke, Garry KC Fürst, Johannes J Frey, Holger Gantayat, Prateek Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien Girard, Claire Huss, Matthias Leclercq, Paul W Linsbauer, Andreas Machguth, Horst Martin, Carlos Maussion, Fabien Morlighem, Mathieu Mosbeux, Cyrille Pandit, Ankur Portmann, Andrea Rabatel, Antoine Ramsankaran, RAAJ Reerink, Thomas J Sanchez, Olivier Stentoft, Peter A Kumari, Sangita Singh van Pelt, Ward JJ Anderson, Brian Benham, Toby Binder, Daniel Dowdeswell, Julian A Fischer, Andrea Helfricht, Kay Kutuzov, Stanislav Lavrentiev, Ivan McNabb, Robert Gudmundsson, G Hilmar Li, Huilin Andreassen, Liss M How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
topic_facet |
Oceanography Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences |
description |
Knowledge of the ice thickness distribution of glaciers and ice caps is an important prerequisite for many glaciological and hydrological investigations. A wealth of approaches has recently been presented for inferring ice thickness from characteristics of the surface. With the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment (ITMIX) we performed the first coordinated assessment quantifying individual model performance. A set of 17 different models showed that individual ice thickness estimates can differ considerably - locally by a spread comparable to the observed thickness. Averaging the results of multiple models, however, significantly improved the results: on average over the 21 considered test cases, comparison against direct ice thickness measurements revealed deviations on the order of 10 ± 24% of the mean ice thickness (1σ estimate). Models relying on multiple data sets - such as surface ice velocity fields, surface mass balance, or rates of ice thickness change - showed high sensitivity to input data quality. Together with the requirement of being able to handle large regions in an automated fashion, the capacity of better accounting for uncertainties in the input data will be a key for an improved next generation of ice thickness estimation approaches. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Farinotti, Daniel Brinkerhoff, Douglas J Clarke, Garry KC Fürst, Johannes J Frey, Holger Gantayat, Prateek Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien Girard, Claire Huss, Matthias Leclercq, Paul W Linsbauer, Andreas Machguth, Horst Martin, Carlos Maussion, Fabien Morlighem, Mathieu Mosbeux, Cyrille Pandit, Ankur Portmann, Andrea Rabatel, Antoine Ramsankaran, RAAJ Reerink, Thomas J Sanchez, Olivier Stentoft, Peter A Kumari, Sangita Singh van Pelt, Ward JJ Anderson, Brian Benham, Toby Binder, Daniel Dowdeswell, Julian A Fischer, Andrea Helfricht, Kay Kutuzov, Stanislav Lavrentiev, Ivan McNabb, Robert Gudmundsson, G Hilmar Li, Huilin Andreassen, Liss M |
author_facet |
Farinotti, Daniel Brinkerhoff, Douglas J Clarke, Garry KC Fürst, Johannes J Frey, Holger Gantayat, Prateek Gillet-Chaulet, Fabien Girard, Claire Huss, Matthias Leclercq, Paul W Linsbauer, Andreas Machguth, Horst Martin, Carlos Maussion, Fabien Morlighem, Mathieu Mosbeux, Cyrille Pandit, Ankur Portmann, Andrea Rabatel, Antoine Ramsankaran, RAAJ Reerink, Thomas J Sanchez, Olivier Stentoft, Peter A Kumari, Sangita Singh van Pelt, Ward JJ Anderson, Brian Benham, Toby Binder, Daniel Dowdeswell, Julian A Fischer, Andrea Helfricht, Kay Kutuzov, Stanislav Lavrentiev, Ivan McNabb, Robert Gudmundsson, G Hilmar Li, Huilin Andreassen, Liss M |
author_sort |
Farinotti, Daniel |
title |
How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
title_short |
How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
title_full |
How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
title_fullStr |
How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
title_full_unstemmed |
How accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? Results from ITMIX, the Ice Thickness Models Intercomparison eXperiment |
title_sort |
how accurate are estimates of glacier ice thickness? results from itmix, the ice thickness models intercomparison experiment |
publisher |
eScholarship, University of California |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6709w6f9 |
op_coverage |
949 - 970 |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, vol 11, iss 2 |
op_relation |
qt6709w6f9 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6709w6f9 |
op_rights |
public |
_version_ |
1769009645378076672 |