FIRST ASSESSMENT OF HY-2A ALTIMETER DATA OVER ANTARCTICA AND GREENLAND USING CROSSOVER ANALYSIS

• Main Authors: Jiang, Maofei, Xu, Ke, Xiong, Yujing
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: HY-2A satellite; radar altimeter; ice sheets; elevation measurements; crossover analysis; Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: http://ir.nssc.ac.cn/handle/122/6710

The radar altimeter onboard China's HY-2A satellite was launched in August 2011 and it can provide the surface elevation measurements from 80.6 degrees N to 80.6 S. In this letter, the precision of the HY-2A elevation measurements over the Antarctica ice sheet (AIS) and the Greenland ice sheet (GrIS) is assessed through crossover analysis. We process the HY-2A sensor geophysical dataset records (SGDR) data from June 1, 2014 to June 14, 2014. The OCOG, Ice-1 and Ice-2 algorithms are applied to retrack the waveforms of HY-2A altimeter over the AIS and GrIS. Crossover analysis shows that the Ice-2 algorithm performs best among the three algorithms. The precision of the HY2A altimeter elevations are found to vary as a function of the threshold of the surface slope from similar to 56 cm to similar to 63 cm over the AIS, and from similar to 29 cm to similar to 50 cm over the GrIS.