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Airborne Laser Altimetry of the Thwaites Glacier Catchment, West Antarctica

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Entry ID

NSIDC-0334

Summary

This data set includes airborne altimetry collected over the catchment and main trunk of Thwaites Glacier, one of Antarctica's most active ice streams. The airborne altimetry comprises 35,000 line-kilometers sampled at 20 meters along track. The full dataset has an internal error of ±20 cm; a primary subset has an error of ±8 cm. We find a +20 cm bias with Geoscience Laser Altimeter System data over a flat interior region. These data will serve as an additional temporal reference for the evolution of Thwaites Glacier surface, as well as aid the construction of future high resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEM). Line data are available in space-delimited ASCII format and are available via FTP.

Geographic Coverage

 

Spatial Coordinates:
N: -75°     S: -80°     E: -95°     W: -130°    

Data Set Citation

Dataset Creator: Duncan Young
Dataset Title: Airborne Laser Altimetry of the Thwaites Glacier Catchment, West Antarctica
Dataset Release Date: 2008-01-01
Dataset Release Place: Boulder, Colorado USA
Dataset Publisher: NSIDC: National Snow and Ice Data Center
Online Resource: http://nsidc.org/data/nsidc-0334.html
Dataset DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7265/N5HD7SK8

Temporal Coverage

Start Date: 2004-12-10
Stop Date: 2005-01-29

Location Keywords

  • CONTINENT ANTARCTICA

Science Keywords

  • Cryosphere Glaciers/Ice Sheets
  • Cryosphere Glaciers/Ice Sheets Glacier Elevation/Ice Sheet Elevation
  • Cryosphere Glaciers/Ice Sheets Glacier Topography/Ice Sheet Topography
  • Cryosphere Glaciers/Ice Sheets Ice Sheets
  • Cryosphere Snow/Ice
  • Terrestrial Hydrosphere Snow/Ice

Ancillary Keywords

  • Airborne Laser Altimeters
  • Airborne Laser Altimetry
  • Altimetry
  • Antarctica
  • Digital Elevation Model
  • Glacier
  • Glacier Surface
  • Ice Stream
  • Thwaites Glacier

ISO Topic Category (View Definitions)

  • Climatology/Meteorology/Atmosphere

Platform

  • AIRCRAFT
  • FIELD SURVEYS

Instrument

  • ALTIMETERS
  • GPS Global Positioning System
  • INS Inertial Navigation System

Quality

The Quality flag (either 'PRIMARY' or 'SECONDARY') indicates whether the (root mean square)RMS crossovers values of the data was low enough to allow it to influence other data during leveling, or whether it should attempt to level to other data.

Use Constraints

If these data are used in a publication, they should be cited using the following reference: Young, D. A., S. D. Kempf, D. D. Blankenship, J. W. Holt, and D. L. Morse (in press), New airborne laser altimetry over the Thwaites Glacier Catchment, West Antarctica , Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, doi:10.1029/2007GC001935

To help us serve the scientific and cryospheric research communities, please acknowledge NSIDC: Data provided by the National Snow and Ice Data Center DAAC, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO.'

Data Set Progress

complete

Data Center

National Snow and Ice Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:

  • National Snow and Ice Data Center
  • CIRES, 449 UCB
  • University of Colorado

City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

NSIDC Antarctic Glaciological Data Center
Data Center URL: http://nsidc.org/agdc/

Data Center Personnel

Name: NSIDC AGDC User Services
Phone: 1 303 492-6199
Fax: 1 303 492-2468
Email: nsidc@nsidc.org
Contact Address:

  • National Snow and Ice Data Center
  • CIRES, 449 UCB
  • University of Colorado

City: Boulder
Province or State: CO
Postal Code: 80309-0449
Country: USA

Distribution

Distribution Media: FTP
Distribution Size: 161 MB
Distribution Format: ASCII Text

Personnel

Duncan A. Young
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Jackson School of Geosciences, Institute for Geophysics
  • J.J. Pickle Research Campus
  • Bldg. 196
  • 10100 Burnet Road (R2200)
  • Austin, TX 78758-4445

City: Austin
Province or State: Texas
Postal Code: 78758-4445
Country: USA

Scott D. Kempf
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Institute for Geophysics
  • Jackson School of Geosciences,
  • J.J. Pickle Research Campus Bldg. 196
  • 10100 Burnet Road (R2200)

City: Austin
Province or State: Texas
Postal Code: 78758-4445
Country: USA

Donald D. Blankenship
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Email: blank@ig.utexas.edu
Contact Address:

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Institute for Geophysics
  • 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd. #600

City: Austin
Province or State: TX
Postal Code: 78759-8500
Country: USA

John W. Holt
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Institute for Geophysics
  • 4412 Spicewood Springs Rd. #600

City: Austin
Province or State: TX
Postal Code: 78759-850
Country: USA

David L. Morse
Role: INVESTIGATOR
Contact Address:

  • University of Texas at Austin
  • Institute for Geophysics

City: Austin
Province or State: TX

Related URL

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
AGDC Web Site

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
Antarctic Glaciological Data Center (AGDC) home page.

VIEW PROJECT HOME PAGE
University of Texas, Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) Web site

Reference

Holt, J. W., D. D. Blankenship, D. L. Morse, D. A. Young, M. E. Peters, S. D. Kempf, T. G. Richter, D. G. Vaughan, and H. Corr (2006), New boundary conditions for the West Antarctic ice sheet: Subglacial topography of the Thwaites and Smith Glacier catchments, Geophysical Research Letters, 33(L09502), 10.1029/2005GL025561.

Blankenship, D. D., D. Morse, C. A. Finn, R. E. Bell, M. E. Peters, S. D. Kempf, S. M. Hodge, M. Studinger, J. C. Behrendt, and J. M. Brozena (2001), Geological controls on the initiation of rapid basal motion for West Antarctic Ice Streams: A geophysical perspective including new airborne radar sounding and laser altimetry results, in The West Antarctic Ice Sheet: Behavior and Environment, Antarctic Research Series, vol. 77, edited by R. B. Alley and R. A. Bindschadler, pp. 105–121, American Geophysical Union.

Young, D. A., S. D. Kempf, D. D. Blankenship, J. W. Holt, and D. L. Morse (in press), New airborne laser altimetry over the Thwaites Glacier Catchment, West Antarctica, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 10.1029/2007GC001935.

Diehl, T. M., J. W. Holt, D. D. Blankenship, D. A. Young, T. A. Jordan, and F. Ferraccioli (2008), First airborne gravity results over the Thwaites Glacier catchment, West Antarctica, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 8(Q04011), 10.1029/2007GC001878.

Diehl, T. M., J. W. Holt, D. D. Blankenship, D. A. Young, T. A. Jordan, and F. Ferraccioli (2008), Antarctic airborne gravity data: Free-Air Gravity Anomalies Over the Thwaites Glacier Catchment, West Antarctica. Boulder, Colorado USA: National Geophysical Data Center, Digital media. http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/gravity/utig_agasea.html

Metadata Name and Version

Metadata Name: CEOS IDN DIF
Metadata Version: 9.7

Creation and Review Dates

DIF Creation Date: 2008-01-01
Last DIF Revision Date: 2013-03-18

Metadata Views

DIF Text-Only

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in plain text

DIF XML

Directory Interchange Format (DIF) in Extensible Markup Language (XML)

FGDC HTML

U.S. Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC) Content Standard for Digital Geospatial Metadata (CSDGM)

ISO HTML

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19115:2003 Geographic Information Metadata

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