Ross Ice Shelf (RIS) is known to experience transient thickness change due to changes in the flow of its tributary ice streams and glaciers and this may complicate identification of external, climateforced signals in contemporary observations of ice shelf thinning and thickening. Flux changes at the lateral boundaries produce both instantaneous and longer timescale adjustments in the coupled ve...

Most satellite-derived bathymetry (SDB) methods developed thus far from passive remote sensing data have required in situ water depth, limiting their utility areas with no data. Recently, new Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) observations shown great potential providing high-precision a priori depth benefits range-resolved lidar. In this study, we propose combined active SDB...

Introduction: Photon-counting lidar altimeters and imagers are the most efficient possible since each range measurement requires only one detected photon as opposed to hundreds or thousands in conventional laser pulse time of flight (TOF) altimeters. The GLAS altimeter on ICESat-I, for example, has a minimum detectable signal corresponding to roughly 100 photoelectrons but can produce in excess...

Vegetation height is one of the leading dimensions of ecological variations among tree species and is central to ecosystem functioning [1]. Since its launch in 2003, GLAS (Geoscience Laser Altimeter System) on board ICESat (Ice, Cloud,and land Elevation Satellite) has produced unprecedented dataset at the global scale [2]. However, the challenge to retrieve canopy height from large-footprint sa...

[1] Ice velocities derived from five Landsat 7 images acquired between January 2000 and February 2003 show a twoto six-fold increase in centerline speed of four glaciers flowing into the now-collapsed section of the Larsen B Ice Shelf. Satellite laser altimetry from ICESat indicates the surface of Hektoria Glacier lowered by up to 38 ± 6 m in a six-month period beginning one year after the brea...

This paper summarizes results obtained for Greenland’s mass balance observed with NASA’s GRACE mission. We estimate a Greenland ice sheet mass loss at -201 ± 19 Gt/year including a discernible acceleration of -8 ± 7 Gt/year between March 2003 and February 2010. The mass loss of glacier systems on the South East of Greenland has slowed down while the mass loss increases toward the North along th...

Analysis of ICESat-1 data (2003-2008) shows significant surface lowering of Totten Glacier, the glacier discharging the largest volume of ice in East Antarctica, and less change on nearby Moscow University Glacier. After accounting for firn compaction anomalies, the thinning appears to coincide with fast-flowing ice indicating a dynamical origin. Here, to elucidate these observations, we apply ...

In this study we address the question of whether regional gravity field modeling techniques of GRACE data can offer improved resolution over traditional global spherical harmonic solutions. Earlier studies into large, equatorial river basins such as the Amazon, Zambezi and others showed no obvious distinction between regional and global techniques, but this may have been limited by the fact tha...

After GLAS (Geo-science Laser Altimeter System) loaded on the ICESat (Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite), satellite laser altimeter attracts more and more attention. ZY3-02 equipped with the Chinese first satellite laser altimeter has been successfully launched on 30 May, 2016. The geometric calibration is an important step for the laser data processing and application. The method to calcu...