Ice Sheets Essential Climate Variable
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Sun, 2013-01-06 23:59
Over the last decade, the Greenland Ice Sheet has shown rapid change, characterized by rapid thinning along the margins, accelerating outlet glaciers, and overall increasing mass loss. The state of the Greenland Ice Sheet is of global importance, and has consequently been included in the CCI Programme as a monitored Essential Climate Variable (ECV).
The object of the CCI Ice Sheets project is to maximize the impact of ESA satellite data on climate research, by analysing data from ESA Earth Observation missions such as ERS, Envisat, CryoSat and the future Sentinel series of satellites.
The project will produce data products of the following four parameters, which are important in characterizing the Greenland Ice Sheet as an ECV:
Surface Elevation Change (SEC) gridded data from radar altimetry;
Ice Velocity (IV) gridded data from synthetic aperture radar interferometry and feature tracking;
Calving Front Location (CFL) time series of marine-terminating glaciers;
Grounding Line Location (GLL) time series of marine-terminating glaciers.
The CCI data will be supplemented with partner agency data from missions such as Landsat and ICESat in order to provide consistent, long term time series of these four parameters. Together with mass change data from GRACE, and melt extent data from satellite microwave observations, the CCI Ice Sheets data sets will improve the monitoring of the most rapidly changing ice sheet on the planet.
All data will be made available to the public in a transparent format. We believe that the data sets produced van be of great societal importance, particularly due to the connection between Ice Sheets changes and future global sea level changes.
Figure: ICESat elevation changes 2003-2009 (L. Sørensen, DTU-Space). For a large version of the figure click "read more": Read more »
Second Issue of CCI Ice Sheets Newsletter Released
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Mon, 2013-03-11 14:37
The second issue of the ESA CCI Ice Sheets newsletter is now available here. The newsletter is intended to reach a wider audience than the official project documentation by presenting some of the results in a magazine-like format. The main topic of this issue is the results of the Roind-Robin exercise.
The Round-Robin exercise was announced on this page, on the CRYOLIST email list, and by personal invitation of 47 select scientists. A total of 22 submissions were received, distributed between SEC (7), IV (9), and CFL (6). The GLL parameter received no submissions, this is understood to be due to the experimental nature of this parameter. The Round-Robin submissions were anonymized and analyzed. Read more »
CCI Ice Sheets to Process Data with CIOP Cloud Infrastructure
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Mon, 2013-03-04 16:18
CCI Ice Sheets is proud to be among the first users of the ESA Cloud Computing Operational Pilot: EO Sandbox Service (CIOP) cloud computing infrastructure. For CCI Ice Sheets, CIOP means efficient use of computer resources, streamlined access to data, and scalable systems that tackle high processing loads.
Scientists are provided with an Cloud based application development environment to implement and test their applications. Within the EO Sandbox and on the one-hand, the scientists find the same environment as they have on their local workstation, on the other they are provided with data discovery and access tools, project management tools suite (e.g. ticketing, versioning, wiki) and a document management system. Read more »
Fourth Ice Sheets Progress Meeting Held in Copenhagen
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Mon, 2013-02-11 23:51
The fourth Ice Sheets CCI progress meeting was held in Lyngby near Copenhagen, Februrary 5th-6th. The meeting was hosted by our consortium partner and Science Lead, the Danish Technical University (DTU). The meeting took two days and covered a varity of topics including the Round-Robin results, system prototype development, and prototype product generation. The second day also saw a visit from Dr. Mark Doherty who had some interesting news for the CCI Ice Sheets project. Read more »
Happy Holidays!
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Fri, 2012-12-21 15:42
The CCI Ice Sheets team wishes you a happy holiday! Thanks for a great first year, and we look forward to continuing our icy relationship in 2013!
Round Roubin Results Reviewed at Progress Meeting 3
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Thu, 2012-11-01 15:50
The third Ice_Sheets_cci progress meeting was held at the Danish Meterological Institute (DMI) in Copenhagen on October 30th-31st. A preliminary review has been performed of the round-robin contributions for Ice Velocity, Surface Elevation Change, Calving Front Location and Grounding Line Location. For both IV and SEC, the high quality of the individual contributions generated a lot of excitement. Togheter with the high number of contributions, this makes the round-robin exercise very successful.
The following topics were discussed: Results of the Round-Robin exercise and review of the Product Validation and Algorithm Selection Report (PVASR); Processing alternatives for the prototype (phase 1) system; System requirements for the phase 2 operational system and the System Requirements Document (SRD). Read more »
CCI Ice Sheets Passes Milestone 1
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Thu, 2012-10-18 18:18
The Ice_Sheets_cci project has passed the first milestone with the completion of the Round-Robin exercise and the publication of the following documents: Algorithm Theoretical Baseline Document, Comprehensive Error Characterisation Report, Data Access Requirements Document, Product Specification Document, and Product Validation Plan. To see the documents click on the links in this news item, or click on "Resources/Documents" in the "Navigation" sidebar. To aid the reader a brief description is given of the contents of each document: Read more »
Round-Robin Exercise Concluded
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Mon, 2012-10-08 09:10
The Round-Robin execise has been concluded. We have received a good number of submissions: Ice Velocity (IV) received 9 esults; Surface Elevation Change (SEC) received 7 results; Calving Front Location (CFL) received 2 results. These results will inform the writing of the Product Validation and Algorithm Selection Report, which will be discussed at the next progress meeting on October 30th-31st.
Round-Robin Deadline Extended to October 7th
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Fri, 2012-09-28 15:28Due to high interest in the the Round-Robin in the last week we have decided to postpone the deadline of the Round-Robin exercise by 1 week. Thus the exercise now finishes at midnight 07.10.2012. We kindly ask participants to submit before 23:59 Central European Time (CET).
The Round-Robin exercise is an invitation to process limited data sets which have been chosen to accurately represent the challenges in remote sensing of ice sheets. The gathered results will enable us to compare state-of-the-art algorithms for remote sensing of ice sheets.
The workload of participating in the Round-Robin is approximately 6-8 hours. For last minute registration please navigate to the Round-Robin portal. Read more »
Third Colocation Meeting and Mid-Term Review Held in Frascati
Submitted by Dag Evensberget on Fri, 2012-09-28 12:04
The third CCI Colocation Meeting was held on September 24th-26th in classy surroundings at Villa Tuscolana in the hills of Frascati. The villa has a colorful history going back to the 16th century.
The meeting was organized in two parallel sessions: A sessions with a scientific focus and B sessions with a systems engineering focus. The A sessions included science brainstorming, round robin results and improvements, and uncertainty characterisation and product maturity. The B sessions included data requirements, continuity and quality, CCI systems, and key requirements for phase two in which operational systems will be created. Read more »
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