Validation of Glacier Topographic Acquisitions from an Airborne Single-Pass Interferometer

• Published in: Sensors
• Main Authors: Moller, Delwyn, Hensley, Scott, Mouginot, Jeremie, Willis, Joshua, Wu, Xiaoqing, Larsen, Christopher, Rignot, Eric, Muellerschoen, Ronald, Khazendar, Ala
• Other Authors: Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), NASA-California Institute of Technology (CALTECH), Institut des Géosciences de l’Environnement (IGE), Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut polytechnique de Grenoble - Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP )-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Grenoble Alpes 2016-2019 (UGA 2016-2019 ), University of California Irvine (UC Irvine), University of California (UC), Department of Earth System Science Irvine (ESS), University of California (UC)-University of California (UC)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: interferometry; topography; glacier; [SDE]Environmental Sciences; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; glaciers; Greenland; Alaska
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02392134; https://hal.science/hal-02392134/document; https://hal.science/hal-02392134/file/sensors-19-03700.pdf; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19173700

International audience The airborne glacier and ice surface topography interferometer (GLISTIN-A) is a single-pass radar interferometer developed for accurate high-resolution swath mapping of dynamic ice surfaces. We present the first validation results of the operational sensor, collected in 2013 over glaciers in Alaska and followed by more exhaustive collections from Greenland in 2016 and 2017. In Alaska, overlapping flight-tracks were mosaicked to mitigate potential residual trends across-track and the resultant maps are validated with lidar. Furthermore, repeat acquisitions of Columbia Glacier collected with a three day separation indicate excellent stability and repeatability. Commencing 2016, GLISTIN-A has circumnavigated Greenland for 4 consecutive years. Due to flight hour limitations, overlapping swaths were not flown. In 2016, comparison with airborne lidar data finds that residual systematic errors exhibit evenly distributed small slopes (all less than 10 millidegrees) and nadir biases were typically less than 1 m. Similarly 2017 data exhibited up to meter-scale nadir biases and evenly distributed residual slopes with a standard deviation of~10 millidegrees). All satisfied the science accuracy requirements of the Greenland campaigns (3 m accuracy across an 8 km swath).