Objectives Reconstruction of ice flow velocity on the Antarctic Ice Sheet plays a critical role in estimating mass balance and contribution to global sea level rise. However, due to the low availability of optical satellite images before the 1990s, the time span of image pairs ranges from several years to more than ten years, leading to velocity overestimations. In this study, we correct the overestimated ice flow velocity based on the Lagrangian framework. After correction, we analyze the distribution of the overestimation values in the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) according to the space and magnitude.
Methods We formulate a set of correction rules, including filtering points of ice flow velocity before correction and whether to retain results after correction. As a transition zone between grounded ice and ice shelf, ice flow velocity near the grounding line is one of the most important parameters of the ice sheet mass balance. In this paper, the overestimations of ice flow velocity are mainly studied from three aspects: First from different regions icluding inland region, grounding region and ice shelf region, then from different ocean sectors icluding Weddell Sea, West Indian Ocean, East Indian Ocean and Ross Sea, finally from different glaciers/ice shelves.
Results The average overestimation of ice flow velocity in EAIS is about 28 m/a. Both the grounding and ice shelf regions have larger overestimations than the inland region. The peak correction appears at ±25 km near the grounding line, and the maximum correction exceeds 300 m/a. As for ocean sectors, the overestimation of velocity is the largest in the East Indian Ocean. The average corrections of the Holmes Glacier, Ninnis Glacier, Publications Ice Shelf, and Totten Glacier in this sector exceed 50 m/a, much larger than that of EAIS.
Conclusions This paper shows that only a very small proportion of ice velocity points can meet the correction rules. The points show differences in regional distribution and they are concentrated mainly in the fast-flowing areas such as glaciers and ice shelves. Especially at the grounding zone and ice front areas of ice shelves, the ice flow velocity can be greatly overestimated. By analyzing the corrections and ice flow velocities in different ocean sectors, we found that the spatial acceleration trend of velocity in the East Indian Ocean is obvious and may be related to the interaction between the ocean and the ice shelves. The distribution of corrections varies among different ice shelves and glaciers. For example, Amery Ice Shelf has a larger correction at the confluence of three upstream glaciers, while Shirase Glacier has a larger correction in the inland region. The correction results in this paper have been applied to historical ice flow velocity products for East Antarctica from 1960s to 1980s. The overestimation correction of ice velocity is important for reducing the uncertainty in estimation and forecasting the contribution of Antarctic mass loss to the global sea level rise.
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