Airborne data from the ESA CryoVEx/DEFIANT Antarctic campaign of 2022/23 is now available on CS2EO.

The CryoVEx/DEFIANT campaign gathered measurements to better understand recent changes to sea ice in the Weddell Sea, as well as the differences between ESA CryoSat and NASA ICESat-2 measurements of sea ice thickness and land ice elevation in support of the Cryo2ice project.

The campaign involved a number of underflights of both CryoSat and ICESat-2, taking simultaneous measurements of ice to help calibrate satellite measurements.

The following datasets have now been added to the CryoSat data and information services platform CS2EO, with links to example queries and downloadable datasets:

• CReSIS: Data collected by dual‐frequency (Ku- and Ka-band) radar altimetry. CReSIS files have been converted from MATLAB format to NetCDF. 
  • Example CReSIS query with entire campaign visible
  • Example CReSIS query over Sheldon Glacier

• ALS: Land and sea ice altimetry data collected by an airborne laser scanner, provided in NetCDF format.
  • Example ALS query with entire campaign visible
  • Coincident data between ALS and CryoSat-2 L2 SAR

• PIX/Photos: Geo-located, high-resolution optical images captured along nadir sightline. GIF previews display when result segments are selected. Users may click the preview GIF to access a high-resolution version.
  • Example PIX query with entire campaign visible
    • Example high-resolution GIF
    • Corresponding low-resolution GIF

Auxiliary GPS and INS data is automatically included in any download of the above datasets. 

CS2EO is developed for ESA by Earthwave and the University of Edinburgh.