Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences

Science Rendezvous > Posters
The presenter is listed in italics. All poster presentations are the property of their respective authors. Please contact the authors for permission to use images, information, or ideas.

Conditional Simulation of Ice Surfaces With Natural Roughness as an Aid in Establishing Measurement Requirements for a Multi-Beam System for ICESat-2

Bruce Wallin, Ute Herzfeld, Steven Sucht, Danielle Lirette

CIRES

Observation of the mass loss of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets is a primary goal of the 'Decadal Survey'. For a better understanding of the processes leading to current ice loss, we need to be able to observe non-linear slope and change in slope from a single observation, and to derive accurate high-resolution DEMs suitable for elevation change monitoring and geophysical modeling and prediction. A multi-beam lidar system has been proposed as an additional or primary channel for ICESat-2, to be launched in 2014. To assess the potential of a multi-beam channel to measure high-resolution topography, we need information on subscale roughness (ice surface roughness at a resolution higher than that of observations with the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) aboard ICESat-1, launched in January 2003). In this talk, we describe a mathematical approach to simulate glacier, ice stream and ice sheet surfaces that (1) are constrained by GLAS elevations at the kilometer scale, (2) have scale-dependent roughness derived from observations and (3) fractal dimension and anisotropy at each scale. We utilize Glacier Roughness Sensor (GRS) data collected in the Greenland Inland Ice, UAV laser profilometer observations and cloud simulations. Results on accuracy of elevation and slope determination are derived for two possible MB channels for ICESat-2.