A Simple and Robust CryoSat‐2 Radar Freeboard Correction Method Dedicated to TFMRA50 for the Arctic Winter Snow Depth and Sea Ice Thickness Retrieval

Abstract

Abstract CryoSat‐2 has been successful in observing sea ice thickness from space by providing ice freeboard information. The initial estimate of the ice freeboard, called radar freeboard, is obtained by analyzing the observed waveform using a retracker. A series of corrections are needed to convert the radar freeboard to the ice freeboard. Those are the physical effects (e.g., changes in wave propagation speed and the distribution of scattering at snow and ice surfaces, etc.) and the bias of the retracker; however, traditionally, only the wave speed correction has been applied due to lack of enough information to perform the complete correction. Here, an alternative correction method for the CryoSat‐2 radar freeboard derived using the Threshold First‐Maximum Retracker Algorithm with a 50% threshold (TFMRA50) is proposed. Snow depth was used as a predictor for the correction, similar to the traditional wave speed correction, but the coefficients were empirically determined by performing a direct comparison of the radar freeboard from CryoSat‐2 and the ice freeboard from airborne observations. Consequently, this new empirical correction treats the physical effects and the retracker bias as a whole, which have been difficult to separate in the retrieval process. In this paper, we demonstrate that the retrieval accuracy of snow and ice variables and the consistency of the two independent retrieval methods are improved when the new correction is applied. The result of this study emphasizes the importance of compatibility between the retracker and the freeboard correction method.

Keywords

• sea ice thickness
• snow depth
• CryoSat‐2
• radar altimeter
• Arctic
• remote sensing