Surface elevations on Qaanaaq and Bowdoin Glaciers in northwestern Greenland as measured by a kinematic GPS survey from 2012–2016

Kinematic GPS measurements provide in-situ data crucial for measuring the surface elevation change of glaciers. Owing to their accuracy, which is generally better than half meter, surface elevations derived from kinematic GPS surveys are useful and essential for generating precise digital elevation models (DEMs) and evaluating geometry changes of glaciers. We present a surface elevation data set derived from kinematic GPS measurements covering the lower 5 km of Qaanaaq and Bowdoin Glaciers in northwestern Greenland. The data includes elevations over ice-free terrain nearby the glaciers, important for calibrating remote sensing data. More than 600,000 GPS survey data points were processed to produce a 1-m resolution mesh grid of elevation data in a CSV file format. Based on our error analysis, the accuracies of the elevation data are better than 0.2 and 0.3 m in horizontal and vertical directions, respectively. This dataset can be utilized to investigate glacier surface elevation changes by making comparison with DEMs obtained in the past, and from future remote sensing and in-situ observations.