ESTIMATING SURFACE ELEVATION BIASES FROM SUBSURFACE SCATTERED PHOTONS FOR LASER ALTIMETERS ...

• Main Author: Greeley, Adam Paul
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Digital Repository at the University of Maryland 2017
• Subjects: Remote sensing; cryosphere; laser altimetry; remote sensing; Arctic; Antarctic; The Antarctic; Antarctic Peninsula; West Antarctica; Greenland; Antarc*; Antarctica; Climate change; glacier; Ice Sheet; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.13016/m29w0927d; http://drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/20770

Three decades of satellite observations have revealed rapid changes in Earth’s cryosphere associated with anthropogenic climate change, including decreased extent and volume of Arctic sea ice, mass loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet, mass loss in West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula, and increased outlet glacier discharge in Greenland and Antarctica. NASA’s ICESat-2 mission will continue observing these rapid changes by measuring individual photons’ round-trip travel times from the satellite to Earth’s surface, providing precise estimates of surface elevation, and subsequent mass change for ice sheets and sea ice freeboard in Earth’s polar regions. This study investigates the potential bias in ICESat-2 surface elevation estimates from photons that have volume scattered in snow by: (1) measuring the transmission of green light through snow, (2) developing a method capable of characterizing the effects of volume scattered photons recorded by laser altimeters, (3) applying this method to laboratory ...