DEM Production for Larsemann Hills Combining Cryosat-2 and Ground-based Elevation Data

Larsemann Hills, located on the Ingrid Christensen Coast of Princess Elizabeth Land in East Antarctica, is an ideal area for Antarctic ice sheet and oceanographic studies. Digital elevation models are of importance to many geoscientific and environmental studies in Antarctic and due to relatively poor coverage by ground based surveys, the main data source for developing Antarctic DEMs is satellite altimetry. The new operating satellite-borne altimeter for ice applications is the ESA satellite CryoSat-2, launched in April 2010. Based on CryoSat-2 data collected during austral winter of 2013 and 2014 and ground based elevation points from China, India, and Australia, a new 200 m DEM for the Larsemann Hills, termed LA-DEM, was derived by the Ordinary Kriging method. The accuracy of LA-DEM was assessed by residual elevation points. The results show that the accuracy of LA-DEM is about 19.7 m, andbetter than four commonly used Antarctic DEMs.