High-resolution topography of the Antarctic Peninsula combining the TanDEM-X DEM and Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) mosaic

Abstract. The Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is one of the widely studied polar regions because its sensitivity to climate change and potential contribution glaciers global sea level rise. Precise digital elevation models (DEMs) at a high spatial resolution are much demanded for investigating complex glacier system AP fine scales. However, two most recent circum-Antarctic DEMs, 12 m TanDEM-X DEM (TDM DEM) from bistatic interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data acquired between 2013 2014 Reference Elevation Model Antarctica mosaic (REMA mosaic) an 8 derived optical 2011 2017 have specific individual limitations in this area. TDM has advantage good consistency few voids (approx. 0.85 %), but there exist residual systematic errors such as phase-unwrapping non-edited version. REMA absolute vertical accuracy, on it suffers extended areas with %). To generate consistent, gapless high-resolution topography product AP, we fill newly processed raw austral winters detect correct (i.e., biases) support accurately calibrated mosaic. Instead pixelwise replacement elevations, these provide reference values biases over entire detected through path propagation algorithm. procedure applied iteratively gradually large small scale. proposed method maintains characteristics InSAR-generated minimally influenced by temporal or penetration differences performance correction evaluated laser altimetry Operation IceBridge ICESat-2 missions. overall root mean square error (RMSE) corrected been reduced more than 30 about 10 which together improved accuracy indicates comparable generated depicts up-to-date detail can be used applications well glaciological studies regional