An improved and robust method of estimating ice sheet elevation changes with ICESat-2 altimetry data

Elevation change monitoring of the Antarctic ice sheet has been a key issue in global change research. Satellite altimetry has been proven to be effective in detecting ice sheet variations. With the development of ICESat-2, many elevation observations can be used to derive elevation changes. However, the large amount of multitemporal data may include anomalous data points, increasing the uncertainty of the results. In this work, we improved the traditional repeat track method by introducing the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics III (IGGIII) method to obtain high-accuracy estimates of elevation change. The improved method was applied to analyze elevation changes along the transect from Zhongshan Station to Dome A in East Antarctica via ICESat-2 satellite altimetry data. The results show that the improved and traditional methods yield consistent numerical and spatial elevation change distributions. The elevation change calculated via the traditional method is 0.033 ± 0.131 m/yr, whereas the elevation change estimated via the IGGIII robust estimation method is 0.033 ± 0.109 m/yr from March 2019 to December 2021. In terms of spatial distribution, elevation changes in inland areas remain close to equilibrium, whereas regions with steeper ice sheet margins exhibit positive accumulation trends in elevation changes. The improved method reduces the standard error of the adjustment function from 0.975 to 0.691 m/yr. The improvement is particularly remarkable in the area between 72°S and 77°S. The results demonstrate that the IGGIII method effectively reduces errors caused by the inclusion of anomalous data and maintains the high data utilization rate of repeat-orbit methods.