ISPRS-Archives ISPRS - International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences ISPRS-Archives Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spatial Inf. Sci. 2194-9034 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1811-2019 PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF SEA ICE FREEBOARD MEASUREMENTS OF BEAUFORT SEA FROM CRYOSAT-2 ALTIMETRY Zhang S. 1 Zuo Y. 1 Xiao F. 1 Yuan L. 1 Geng T. 1 Xuan Y. 1 Chinese Antarctic Center of Surveying and Mapping, Wuhan University, 430079 Wuhan, China 05 06 2019 XLII-2/W13 1811 1815 Copyright: © 2019 S. Zhang et al. 2019 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1811-2019.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://isprs-archives.copernicus.org/articles/isprs-archives-XLII-2-W13-1811-2019.pdf

Satellite altimetry has been used to observe the Arctic sea ice in long term and large scale, and the records show a continued decline for Arctic sea ice thickness over decades. In this study, the sea ice freeboard in Beaufort Sea of Arctic have been estimated using CryoSat-2 data, and validated with Upward Looking Sonar (ULS) data of Beaufort Gyre Exploration Project (BGEP). The results show an obvious seasonal variation of the Beaufort Sea with a high reliability estimation of the sea ice freeboard. The average height of the sea ice freeboard increase from January to March and achieve the maximum value 0.38 m in March. The sea ice melts after March and the average height of the sea ice freeboard reduces to the minimum 0.12 m in August. In the next few months the sea water begins to freeze and the average height of the sea ice freeboard will increase to the maximum value.