The Antarctic CCI aims to produce long term and reliable climate satellite data records required by the scientific user community.
These datasets will improve understanding of present day change on the Antarctic Ice Sheet and provide data for models at a higher spatial and temporal resolution than is currently available, thereby improving estimates of future change.
This CCI aims to maximize the impact of ESA satellite data on climate research, by analysing data from missions such as ERS, Envisat, CryoSat, GRACE and the new Sentinels.
The project will produce data products on surface elevation change, ice velocity, calving front location, grounding line location and gravimetry mass balance, all of which are important in characterising the Greenland Ice Sheet as an Essential Climate Variable. The CCI data will be supplemented with partner agency data from missions such as Landsat and ICESat in order to provide consistent, long term time series of these five parameters. Together with melt extent data from satellite microwave observations, the CCI Greenland Ice Sheet data sets will improve the monitoring of the most rapidly changing ice sheet on the planet.