Joanna Fredenslund Levinsen

CR Cryospheric Sciences

The 2013 Outstanding Student Poster (OSP) Award is awarded to Joanna Fredenslund Levinsen for the poster/PICO entitled:

Validation and inter-comparison of surface elevation changes derived from altimetry over the Jakobshavn Isbræ drainage basin, Greenland – Round Robin results from ESA’s Ice_Sheets_CCI (Fredenslund Levinsen, J.; Khvorostovsky, K.; Ticconi, F.)

Click here to download the poster/PICO file.

I am currently doing my PhD at the Danish National Space institute at the Technical University of Denmark, namely DTU Space. My poster presented the results of the ESA project I’m involved in: The Ice Sheet Climate Change Initiative (CCI). In this, we are working on determining four essential climate variables (ECV) for the Greenland Ice Sheet, each of them resulting in publically available datasets. The ECVs are surface elevation changes (SEC), ice velocities, grounding line locations, and calving front positions. In order for the EVCs to be determined most accurately, a so-called Round Robin exercise was performed in which the scientific community was contacted and researchers were asked to contribute with their best estimate of the ECV parameters. The poster presents the 10 received SEC submissions and through those an inter-comparison of e.g. radar vs. laser altimetry and cross-overs vs. repeat track. This has led us to conclude that SEC estimates for Greenland are best determined using a combination of repeat-track and cross-over results, and that radar altimetry has a very good potential for obtaining accurate estimates.