Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet
Changes in firn properties affect the shape of pulse-limited radar altimeter echoes acquired over the polar ice sheets. We apply a waveform deconvolution model to CryoSat-2 low-resolution mode echoes to determine the depth distribution of radar backscattering across the Greenland Ice Sheet. The deco...
Published in: | IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing |
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Online Access: | https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/ https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/1/Slater_Author_accepted_ms.pdf |
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ftulancaster:oai:eprints.lancs.ac.uk:136103 2024-05-19T07:41:15+00:00 Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet Slater, Thomas Shepherd, Andrew McMillan, Mal Armitage, Thomas W. K. Otosaka, Ines Arthern, Robert J. 2019-08-07 text https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/ https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/1/Slater_Author_accepted_ms.pdf en eng https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/1/Slater_Author_accepted_ms.pdf Slater, Thomas and Shepherd, Andrew and McMillan, Mal and Armitage, Thomas W. K. and Otosaka, Ines and Arthern, Robert J. (2019) Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. ISSN 0196-2892 creative_commons_attribution_noncommercial_4_0_international_license Journal Article PeerReviewed 2019 ftulancaster 2024-04-23T23:38:59Z Changes in firn properties affect the shape of pulse-limited radar altimeter echoes acquired over the polar ice sheets. We apply a waveform deconvolution model to CryoSat-2 low-resolution mode echoes to determine the depth distribution of radar backscattering across the Greenland Ice Sheet. The deconvolution allows us to calculate the relative contributions of surface and volume scattering and the effective penetration depth of the radar echoes into the snowpack. The most prominent signal is associated with the extreme surface melting of summer 2012, which resulted in a shift of the dominant radar scattering horizon toward the snow surface in the accumulation zone. At locations above 2000 m, the average penetration depth in July 2012 (prior to the melt event) was 3.79 ± 1.12 m. Following the melt event, there was an abrupt reduction in the average penetration depth across the same region to 1.45 ± 0.94 m. The average penetration depth then gradually increased to 3.28 ± 1.13 m by the end of 2017, as fresh snow accumulated on the ice sheet surface. Although the variation in penetration is evident in surface height estimates derived from the CryoSat-2 echoes, the magnitude of the effect is reduced by waveform retracking. Using airborne laser altimeter data recorded over the same time period, we show that the penetration variation can be compensated effectively by incorporating the deconvolution penetration depth into the surface height retrieval. Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Ice Sheet Lancaster University: Lancaster Eprints IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 57 12 9633 9642 |
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Open Polar |
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Lancaster University: Lancaster Eprints |
op_collection_id |
ftulancaster |
language |
English |
description |
Changes in firn properties affect the shape of pulse-limited radar altimeter echoes acquired over the polar ice sheets. We apply a waveform deconvolution model to CryoSat-2 low-resolution mode echoes to determine the depth distribution of radar backscattering across the Greenland Ice Sheet. The deconvolution allows us to calculate the relative contributions of surface and volume scattering and the effective penetration depth of the radar echoes into the snowpack. The most prominent signal is associated with the extreme surface melting of summer 2012, which resulted in a shift of the dominant radar scattering horizon toward the snow surface in the accumulation zone. At locations above 2000 m, the average penetration depth in July 2012 (prior to the melt event) was 3.79 ± 1.12 m. Following the melt event, there was an abrupt reduction in the average penetration depth across the same region to 1.45 ± 0.94 m. The average penetration depth then gradually increased to 3.28 ± 1.13 m by the end of 2017, as fresh snow accumulated on the ice sheet surface. Although the variation in penetration is evident in surface height estimates derived from the CryoSat-2 echoes, the magnitude of the effect is reduced by waveform retracking. Using airborne laser altimeter data recorded over the same time period, we show that the penetration variation can be compensated effectively by incorporating the deconvolution penetration depth into the surface height retrieval. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Slater, Thomas Shepherd, Andrew McMillan, Mal Armitage, Thomas W. K. Otosaka, Ines Arthern, Robert J. |
spellingShingle |
Slater, Thomas Shepherd, Andrew McMillan, Mal Armitage, Thomas W. K. Otosaka, Ines Arthern, Robert J. Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
author_facet |
Slater, Thomas Shepherd, Andrew McMillan, Mal Armitage, Thomas W. K. Otosaka, Ines Arthern, Robert J. |
author_sort |
Slater, Thomas |
title |
Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_short |
Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_full |
Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_fullStr |
Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_full_unstemmed |
Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet |
title_sort |
compensating changes in the penetration depth of pulse-limited radar altimetry over the greenland ice sheet |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/ https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/1/Slater_Author_accepted_ms.pdf |
genre |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/136103/1/Slater_Author_accepted_ms.pdf Slater, Thomas and Shepherd, Andrew and McMillan, Mal and Armitage, Thomas W. K. and Otosaka, Ines and Arthern, Robert J. (2019) Compensating Changes in the Penetration Depth of Pulse-Limited Radar Altimetry Over the Greenland Ice Sheet. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. ISSN 0196-2892 |
op_rights |
creative_commons_attribution_noncommercial_4_0_international_license |
container_title |
IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
57 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
9633 |
op_container_end_page |
9642 |
_version_ |
1799480852440154112 |