Ocean Subsurface study from ICESat-2 mission

NASA has launched the ICESat-2 mission in September 2018 with the primary purpose of monitoring changes in the cryosphere.Fortunately, the detected photons over ocean region provide great opportunity for the ocean subsurface study. We have proposed a novel algorithm to determine ocean subsurface optical properties, such as,diffuse attenuated coefficient, k_d(/m), total backscattering coefficients b_b(/m), attenuated backscatter coefficient and particulate backscattering coefficients b_bp(/m) from ICESat-2/ATLAS lidar measurements. Our ICESat-2 ocean subsurface results reveal high vertical resolution of these optical properties through the water column that are hidden from the passive ocean color record.Moreover, we can estimate the particulate organic carbon (POC) and phytoplankton carbon biomass based on the ICESat-2 retrieved particulate backscattering coefficientsb_bpresults. We will present and discuss the first ICESat-2 ocean subsurface profile results, especially in polar region where passive ocean color measurements are difficult to make.We will also present our preliminary interdisciplinary scientific studies to investigate the link between cryosphere, ocean biology, aerosols/clouds using the ICESat-2 data.