A Least-Squares Adjusted Grounding Line for the Amery Ice Shelf Using ICESat and Landsat 8 OLI Data

The grounding line (GL) is the transition boundary between a grounded ice sheet and a floating ice shelf. The location of the GL is very important for calculating the ice sheet mass balance and studying the interactions between ice and ocean. In this paper, Landsat 8 optical images and NASA Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite/Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (ICESat/GLAS) data are merged together to develop a precise GL for the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS). An improved plane-fitting model is used to remove the slope-induced error in the ICESat GL extraction. A least-squares model is then applied to the manually digitized Landsat 8 GL to adjust the positions where the ICESat GL is detected. The adjusted GL combines the texture from the Landsat 8 data and the elevation information from the ICESat data. The combination of different remote sensing data is used to produce a new adjusted GL for the AIS.

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