Complex Independent Component Analysis of Multi-Mission Satellite Altimetry Great Lakes Water Level

Session: A Possible New Paradigm to Improve the International Great Lakes Datum and Its Maintenance (2)

Wei Chen, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Ehsan Forootan, University of Hohenheim, [email protected]
C K Shum, Dvision of Geodetic Science, School of Earth Sciences, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Yuanyuan Jia, The Ohio State University, [email protected]
Philip Chu, NOAA/GLERL, [email protected]
Junyi Guo, Division of Geodetic Science, School of Earth Sciences, Ohio State University, [email protected]
Min Zhong, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, CAS, [email protected]

Abstract

As the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by area, the Great Lakes provide drinking water, recreations, and food to 40 million people and billions of dollars in economic benefits in the region. Lake surface height change is an important indicator for water resources management, ecosystem services, and disaster response, the long-term, short-term, seasonal and interannual water level fluctuations can result in both positive and negative reflections on ecosystems. The Great Lakes is under increasingly adverse impacts due to anthropogenic climate change. A recent effort to use multiple mission satellite radar altimetry data with more than three decades of historic data for operational monitoring of the Great Lakes as part of NOAA’s CoastWatch, Lake-wide water levels to benefit Great Lakes Operational Forecast System (GLOFS), and to validate the new International Great Lakes Datum (IGLD) and to possibly to improve its maintenance. Here, we use standard Empirical Orthogonal Function analysis, and the more advanced Complex Independent Component Analysis (CICA) methods to reconstruct multi-altimetry observed Great Lakes water level, and compared the two decompositions. Our objectives is to assess the viability to use the de-noised CICA water level reconstruction for assimilative Lake forecasting studies, and to support the realization of IGLD.