The TotCal / CryoVExANT2011 project is an Australian and German collaboration that aims to contribute to the validation of the CryoSat-2 radar altimetry mission through investigations across two key regions in East Antarctica; the Totten Glacier and Law Dome. The project has completed two field seasons in the austral summers of 2010/11 and 2011/12, acquiring various airborne (ALS and ASIRAS) and in situ datasets (GPS, skidoo transects and firn pits). In this study, we investigate the accuracy of the GPS based aircraft trajectory and subsequent ALS surface models derived from the 2011/12 season. We compare trajectories from a single typical survey flight, processed using a number of different GPS analysis strategies. We describe our approach used to obtain in situ data for ALS validation, and subsequently use these data to show agreement at the ～50 mm level (mean bias). Extensive crossover analysis using the full ALS swath shows we are able to achieve ALS precision of ～70 mm using the preferred GPS solution.
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