Surface elevation, hydrostatic ice thickness and basal mass balance of the Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, link to GeoTIFFs

Ice shelves control the dynamic mass loss of ice sheets through buttressing and their integrity depends on the spatial variability of their basal mass balance (BMB) i.e., the difference between refreezing and melting. Here, we present an improved technique - based on satellite observations - to capture the small-scale variability in the BMB of ice shelves. As a case study, we apply the methodology to the Roi Baudouin Ice Shelf, Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica, and derive its yearly averaged BMB at 10 m horizontal gridding. We use mass conservation in a Lagrangian framework based on high-resolution surface velocities, atmospheric-model surface mass balance and hydrostatic ice-thickness fields (derived from TanDEM-X surface elevation). Spatial derivatives are implemented using the total-variation differentiation, which preserves abrupt changes in flow […]