Antarctic ice shelf thickness from CryoSat‐2 radar altimetry

Abstract

Abstract Ice shelf thickness for the whole of Antarctica is derived from 4 years (2011–2014) of CryoSat‐2 (CS2) radar altimetry measurements using the assumption that the shelves are in hydrostatic equilibrium. The satellite orbit and novel synthetic aperture radar interferometric mode of CS2 results in 92.3% data coverage over the ice shelves, with particular improvements around the grounding zone. When compared to ICESat data, surface elevations have a mean bias of less than 1 m and a fourfold reduction in standard deviation compared with the previous data set. Over the Amery Ice Shelf there is a mean thickness difference of 3.3% between radio echo sounding measurements and the CS2‐derived thicknesses, rising to 4.7% within 10 km of the grounding line. Our new data set provides key improvements in accuracy and coverage, especially in the grounding zone, allowing for reduced uncertainties in mass budget calculations, subshelf ocean and ice sheet‐shelf modeling.