Mapping the aerodynamic roughness of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface using ICESat-2: evaluation over the K-transect

van Tiggelen, Maurice; Smeets, Paul C. J. P.; Reijmer, Carleen H.; Wouters, Bert; Steiner, Jakob F.; Nieuwstraten, Emile J.; Immerzeel, Walter W.; van den Broeke, Michiel R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2601-2021

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2601-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-2601-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 6

Research article

| Highlight paper

|

11 Jun 2021

Research article | Highlight paper |

| 11 Jun 2021

Mapping the aerodynamic roughness of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface using ICESat-2: evaluation over the K-transect

Maurice van Tiggelen, Paul C. J. P. Smeets, Carleen H. Reijmer, Bert Wouters, Jakob F. Steiner, Emile J. Nieuwstraten, Walter W. Immerzeel, and Michiel R. van den Broeke

Data sets

Datasets used in Figures Maurice van Tiggelen, Paul C. J. P. Smeets, Carleen H. Reijmer, Bert Wouters, Jakob F. Steiner, Emile J. Nieuwstraten, Walter W. Immerzeel, and Michiel R. van den Broeke https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4386867

Short summary

We developed a method to estimate the aerodynamic properties of the Greenland Ice Sheet surface using either UAV or ICESat-2 elevation data. We show that this new method is able to reproduce the important spatiotemporal variability in surface aerodynamic roughness, measured by the field observations. The new maps of surface roughness can be used in atmospheric models to improve simulations of surface turbulent heat fluxes and therefore surface energy and mass balance over rough ice worldwide.