Evaluation and application of GPS and altimetry data over central Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica

Abstract

The polar ice sheets are unique paleoclimatic archives and play an important role in recent and future climate. The melting of the big freshwater reservoirs will not only increase the global sea level, but will also influence the ocean currents. Therefore, it will be of particular interest to improve the currently available numeric climate models to achieve more accurate statements about climatic change and its consequences. In this work, the evaluation and the different applications of GPS and altimetry data will be described in respect to enhance models. The antarctic area of investigation, Dronning Maud Land (DML), is of particular interest for German polar research, because both the overwintering station Neumayer and the summer station Kohnen are located within it. In the surroundings of these two stations, highly accurate kinematic GPS measurement were made, which will be the basis for the digital elevation model presented here. Because these data are spatially limited, they are supplemened with remotely sensed data. For this purpose, two airborne altimetry data sets and spaceborne laser altimetry data of the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) are used...