Antarctica sea-ice thickness distributions derived from surface elevation compared to measured thickness values

• Main Authors: Stephen Ackley, Burcu Ozsoy-cicek, Hongjie Xie
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; Arctic; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Antarctica; Global warming; Sea ice
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.674.8442; http://conference2011.wcrp-climate.org/posters/C11/C11_Ackley_M115B.pdf

Previous attempts to analyze IceSAT elevation data for Anttarctic sea ice thickness have had to rely on a separate, lower resolution satellite estimate of snow depth. Our technique, relying on the unique and high correlation of Snow Elevation and Snow Depth over the large proportion of the Antarctic sea ice cover, means instead that the IceSAT elevation measurement alone can be converted into Ice Thickness with potentially much lower errors than using other assumptions about snow depth. Because of the correlation, the elevation is also a strong predictor of the snow depth, making computations of snow depth distributions over Antarctic sea ice also possible. RMS error values in this method are small and can also be quantified based on the comparison to field data available from the cruise profiles analyzed here. Submarines, utilizing sonar, were originally used to find ice thickness in the Arctic and have shown the recent decline in sea ice thickness in the Arctic attributed to global warming. For the Antarctic, sea ice thickness, without submarine traverses, is unavailable on the regional or circumpolar scales. The ICEsat