Improving Antarctic tide models by assimilation of ICESat laser altimetry over ice shelves

摘要

Assimilation of laser altimeter data from the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) significantly improves the accuracy of ocean tide models for the Ross Ice Shelf (RIS). For the most energetic tidal harmonic, K-1, assimilation reduces the root-mean-square error (RMSE) between the model and a set of 16 independent tide records on and near the RIS from 6.0 to 2.8 cm, and the combined RMSE for the six most energetic tidal harmonics from 7.7 to 5.4 cm. When only the six most recent and highest-quality tide records are considered, the combined RMSE is 4.8 cm. This value is close to the uncertainty expected from tidal analyses of the short (similar to 1-2 month) validation records, indicating that assessing further improvements in tide model accuracy will require development of a higher quality validation data set. Citation: Padman, L., S. Y. Erofeeva, and H. A. Fricker (2008), Improving Antarctic tide models by assimilation of ICESat laser altimetry over ice shelves, Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L22504, doi:10.1029/2008GL035592.