About the consistency between Envisat and CryoSat-2 radar freeboard retrieval over Antarctic sea ice

Abstract

Knowledge about Antarctic sea-ice volume and its changes over the past decades has been sparse due to the lack of systematic sea-ice thickness measurements in this remote area. Recently, first attempts have been made to develop a sea-ice thickness product over the Southern Ocean from space-borne radar altimetry and results look promising. Today, more than 20 years of radar altimeter data are potentially available for such products. However, data come from different sources, and the characteristics of individual sensors differ. Hence, it is important to study the consistency between single sensors in order to develop long and consistent time series over the potentially available measurement period. Here, the consistency between freeboard measurements of the Radar Altimeter 2 on-board Envisat and freeboard measurements from the Synthetic-Aperture Interferometric Radar Altimeter on-board CryoSat-2 is tested for their overlap period in 2011. Results indicate that mean and modal values are comparable over the sea-ice growth season (May-October) and partly also beyond. In general, Envisat data shows higher freeboards in the seasonal ice zone while CryoSat-2 freeboards are higher in the perennial ice zone and near the coasts. This has consequences for the agreement in individual sectors of the Southern Ocean, where one or the other ice class may dominate. Nevertheless, over the growth season, mean freeboard for the entire (regional separated) Southern Ocean differs generally by not more than 2 cm (5 cm, except for the Amundsen/Bellingshausen Sea) between Envisat and CryoSat-2, and the differences between modal freeboard lie generally within ±10 cm and often even below.