资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

A track of sea ice reflected Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signal collected by the TechDemoSat-1 mission is processed to perform phase altimetry over sea ice. High-precision carrier phase measurements are extracted from coherent GNSS reflections at a high angle of elevation (>57 degrees). The altimetric results show good consistency with a mean sea surface (MSS) model, and the root-mean-square difference is 4.7cm with an along-track sampling distance of approximate to 140m and a spatial resolution of approximate to 400m. The difference observed between the altimetric results and the MSS shows good correlation with the colocated sea ice thickness data from Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity. This is consistent with the reflecting surface aligned with the bottom of the ice-water interface, due to the penetration of the GNSS signal into the sea ice. Therefore, these high-precision altimetric results have potential to be used for determination of sea ice thickness.