OIB Long Range Planning Luthcke and Jezek

OIB Long Term Observation Goals OIB is meant to provide data to improve our understanding of the mass evolution of the ice sheets and major mt. glaciers, their vulnerability to climate change and their contribution to sea-level. In particular, the data will help us characterize and understand the processes governing change. Because Aircraft observations are limited in spatial and temporal sampling, OIB is really meant to improve our understanding in specific targeted local areas at spatial resolutions that satellite data can not capture, and to improve the larger spatial scale (but smaller temporal scale) observations acquired by satellite data (e.g. I-1, I-2 and GRACE and GRACE-2). Of course, OIB is also collecting data during a gap in satellite laser altimetry. Therefore OIB: 1) targets "hot spots" identified by satellite and other data to provide very detailed spatial sampling for characterization and modeling, and to improve satellite measurement model algorithms and performance assessment. This would be focused area mapping or dense grid and flowline mapping of "hot spots", and Icesat line coverage. 2) provides large scale spatial sampling to provide a fundamental datum to link past and future satellite missions. This would be large area gridding, which provides sufficient sampling for current and future predicted change and to acquire enough collocated satellite/airborne data. So, some of the OIB contribution to science can be in the near-term, while a good deal more is for the long-term. However, if we nicely lay the foundation we can quantify how we are contributing to the long-term.

Hot Spots from GRACE (Luthcke)

Altimetry Hot Spots (Zwally and Giovineto, 2011)

Issues for the Long Range Plan Antarctic Coverage Manned Aircraft Availability UAV’s Instrument Suite Trades between coverage/instruments/specific science

Data/Modeling Philosophy Overarching OIB goal is to understand the contribution of polar ice to future sea level rise Reaching that goal requires a synchronized stream of geophysical products that feed models. We need to shift the paradigm towards a community wide, coordinated approach to data processing and modelling efforts Decentralized efforts on pieces of the data stream delay reaching the goal Along with data, model code should be made easily available (great start made with the 2009 summer modeling school – should something like this be part of OIB).

Data Stream Model Mass Balance Dynamics Radar Travel Time Radar Reflectivity Near Surface Layers Lidar Travel Time Gravity Acceleration Magnetic Field Strength InSAR Phase Ice Thickness Basal Wetness Accumulation Rate Surface Elevation Free Air Anomaly Corrected Field Displacement Surface Velocity Magnetic Basement Bathymetry Elevation Change Prediction Gravity Acceleration (GRACE) Mass Loss To achieve the OIB science goal, geophysical products must flow synchronously into models. It is not sufficient to provide lower level products or to delay release of what have become standard products 6 month delivery of red products

Data Management 1) There should be a "one stop shopping", at NSIDC. 2) There should be "quicklook" and "final" products. The "quicklook" product will allow data to be out as soon as possible for planning and assessment purposes without scaring off the instrument leads that are likely being conservative to make sure they get every bit of accuracy they can. 3) There should be an agreed upon schedule for product delivery that is necessarily different for each instrument. In developing this delivery schedule with each instrument we will uncover bottlenecks and hopefully be able to help work them out or at least understand them. The purpose of the delivery schedule is not to micro-manage the very capable instrument teams, but to provide an understanding for the reasonable flow of data and to schedule science planning and analysis activities. 4) There should be regular assessments of the instrument performance by both the instrument teams and independent science team members working together. 5) There should be coordination across all NASA funded projects to establish a synchronized flow of geophysical products into the models