ARCTIC EXPERIMENTS TO SUPPORT CRYOSAT
The primary goals of CryoSat-2 are to derive improved rates of change of elevation and thickness estimates of the Earth’s land and marine ice fields. Validating such retrievals obtained from a nadir polar observing Synthetic Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), the primary payload, is not a simp...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.375.7516 |
| Summary: | The primary goals of CryoSat-2 are to derive improved rates of change of elevation and thickness estimates of the Earth’s land and marine ice fields. Validating such retrievals obtained from a nadir polar observing Synthetic Interferometric Radar Altimeter (SIRAL), the primary payload, is not a simple one. A key problem is to fully understand the uncertainties and acquire many different types of in-situ measurements in highly inhospitable regions of the cryosphere and at particular times of the year to allow detection of inter-annual cycles. In order to correlate retrievals from CryoSat with the local in-situ data it was decided early in the CryoSat development that an aircraft borne radar altimeter with similar functionality to SIRAL would provide the necessary link between local and regional spatial scales and provide pre-launch incite into expected performances and issues. In 2001 ESA commenced the development of a prototype radar altimeter that mimics the functionality of SIRAL-2 with subtle functional differences. The airborne SAR/Interferometric Radar Altimeter System (ASIRAS) has now been the centrepiece instrument for a number of large scale land and sea ice field campaigns in the Arctic during spring and autumn 2004 and 2007. This paper describes the different types of airborne and in-situ measurements acquired, key science results and the importance of past campaigns and those planned in the run up to a CryoSat-2 launch. 1. |
|---|