Digital elevation models of the sea-ice surface from airborne laser scanning during MOSAiC

Abstract

Airborne laser scanners (ALS) are used to map the sea-ice surface at sub-meter resolution. We conducted 64 flights over the Arctic sea ice between September 2019 and September 2020 during the Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate (MOSAiC) expedition to measure sea-ice surface elevation. The flights ranged from repeated, local-scale 5 × 5 km2 floe grid surveys to regional-scale transects more than 100 km long. We provide data at different processing levels: geolocated elevation point clouds and gridded segments of elevation and freeboard with a spatial resolution of 0.5 m. The latter product is corrected for atmospheric backscatter, sea-ice drift, and offset in elevation due to degraded INS/GNSS solutions > 85° N. For floe grid surveys, all data are combined to merged two-dimensional elevation maps. Other provided parameters include laser reflectance and echo width. The presented data offer a unique possibility to study the temporal evolution, spatial distribution, and variability of the snow and sea-ice surface and their properties in addition to validating satellite products.