Sea Ice Surface Roughness derived from Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) lidar elevation data, Arctic, 2009-2018 (NCEI Accession 0209230) ...

• Main Authors: Connor, Laurence, Duncan, Kyle, Farrell, Sinead
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information 2020
• Subjects: Arctic; Airborne Topographic Mapper; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.25921/mp9c-y528; https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive/accession/0209230

The surface roughness is derived from Airborne Topographic Mapper (ATM) lidar elevation data acquired during annual, low-altitude NASA Operation IceBridge airborne surveys over Arctic sea ice between the months of March and May. Surface roughness is defined as the standard deviation of elevation per unit area. Due to the conical scanning geometry of the ATM lidar, across-track sampling is non-uniform, with sampling density greatest at the swath edges. To account for the variation in sample density, ATM elevation data are gridded. Each grid cell has an along-track dimension of 30 m and an across-track dimension that is inversely proportional to the across-track sampling density. The grid configuration optimizes ATM sample density providing high-resolution measurements of sea ice surface roughness while still containing enough point measurements for robust statistical calculations. Statistics are computed on the distribution of sea ice surface roughness for 10 km along-track segments, for each aircraft flight ...