ICESat-2 Altimetry as Geodetic Control
Abstract
Digital elevation models are of fundamental importance for a large variety of scientific and commercial applications. Many geoscience studies require the most precise and current information about the Earth's topography. As they become available, it is important to perform independent assessments of the quality of these Digital Elevation Models (DEMs). These assessments are crucial to their appropriate use in land process studies, as inputs to models, and for detection of topographic change. The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) provided globally-distributed elevation data of high accuracy that demonstrated to be well-suited for evaluating continental Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) after appropriate editing (Carabajal and Harding, 2005; Carabajal and Harding, 2006; Carabajal et al., 2010 and 2011; Carabajal and Boy, 2016). With the launch of ICESat-2 on September 15th, 2019, an opportunity to develop a dataset suitable for Geodetic Ground Control studies has emerged. With increased coverage, ICESat-2/ATLAS features 6 laser beams with 532 nm wavelength, using photon counting technologies. It is collecting a more detailed set of precise heights with a polar orbit reaching up to 88 degrees, on a 91-day exact repeat orbit with monthly sub-cycle. ICESat-2's footprint size is ~17m, with a pulse repetition frequency of 10 kHz, or 0.75 m along track. Its pointing control is 45 m, with a pointing knowledge of 6.5 m, and a single photon precision of 800 ps. Sophisticated data processing techniques on the ground, optimized by surface type, are producing high quality estimates of topography. As the processing of the mission data evolves, and better estimates of the altimetry geolocation become available, we explore the capability to use the ICESat-2 altimetry to assess the accuracy of available elevation models using the highest quality laser altimetry estimates of height.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFM.C31C1532C
- Keywords:
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- 3360 Remote sensing;
- ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSES;
- 0726 Ice sheets;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 0750 Sea ice;
- CRYOSPHERE;
- 4556 Sea level: variations and mean;
- OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL