Multiresolution fusion of radar sounder and altimeter data for the generation of high resolution DEMs of ice sheets

Understanding the dynamics and processes of the ice sheets is crucial for predicting the behavior of climate change. A potential approach to achieve this is by using high resolution (HR) digital elevation models (DEMs) of the ice surface derived from remote sensing radar or laser altimeters. Unfortunately, at present HR DEMs of large portions of the ice sheets are not available. To address this issue, in this paper we propose a multisensor data fusion technique for the generation of a HR DEM of the ice sheets, which fuses two types of data, i.e., radargrams acquired by radar sounder (RS) instruments and ice surface elevation data measured by altimeter (ALT) instruments. The aim of the technique is to generate a DEM of the ice surface at the best possible horizontal resolution by exploiting the complementary characteristics of the RS and ALT data. This is done by defining a novel processing scheme that involves image processing techniques based on data rescaling, geostatistical interpol...