SUMMARY. THE OVERARCHING GOAL OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT IS TO ANALYZE ICESAT-2 ICE SURFACE DATA FOR GLACIOLOGICAL REGIONS THAT ARE REPRESENTATIVE OF DIFFERENT SURFACE TYPES AND OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF GLACIAL ACCELERATION AND MELT PROCESSES AND THUS TO EVALUATE AND DEMONSTRATE THE CAPABILITY OF ICESAT-2 TO PROVIDE OBSERVATIONS THAT AID IN SOLVING URGENT RESEARCH QUESTIONS RELATED TO DYNAMIC AND CLIMATIC CHANGES IN THE CRYOSPHERE.AS IS WELL-KNOWN A MULTI-BEAM MICRO-PULSE PHOTON-COUNTING LASER ALTIMETER WAS SELECTED AS THE INSTRUMENT FOR THE ICESAT-2 MISSION BECAUSE THE RESULTANT DATA CAN BE EXPECTED TO CAPTURE THE SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL VARIABILITY IN ICE-SURFACE HEIGHT THAT IS REQUIRED TO UNDERSTAND THOSE PROCESSES THAT DRIVE RAPID CHANGES IN THE CRYOSPHERE (ABDALATI ET AL. 2010; MARKUS ET AL. 2017) FOREMOST MELT EVENTS AND GLACIAL ACCELERATION. GLACIAL ACCELERATION IS THE LARGEST SOURCE OF UNCERTAINTY IN ASSESSMENT OF SEA-LEVEL RISE (SLR) IN THE CURRENT REALM OF CLIMATIC WARMING ACCORDING TO THE FIFTH ASSESSMENT REPORT (AR 5) OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE (IPCC) (STOCKER ET AL. 2013). IN 2012 UNPRECEDENTED LARGE MELT EVENTS THAT AFFECTED MUCH OF THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET DROVE HOME THE NOTION THAT THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET HAS ALREADY ENTERED A DIFFERENT REALM REGARDING SURFACE MASS BALANCE (SMB) (NGHIEM ET AL. 2012; HALL ET AL. 2013; TEDESCO ET AL. 2013). AS A MEANS TO FULLY USE THE MEASUREMENT CAPABILITIES OF THE MICRO-PULSE PHOTON-COUNTING TECHNOLOGY THE PI HAS DEVELOPED A DENSITY-DIMENSION ALGORITHM FOR ICE-SURFACE ANALYSIS (THE DDA-ICE) WHICH ALLOWS TO ACCURATELY RETRIEVE ICESAT-2 SURFACE HEIGHTS EVEN IN REGIONS OF HEAVY CREVASSING OR FIRN COVER AND UNDER INTERMITTENT CLOUDS (HERZFELD ET AL. 2017). SURFACE HEIGHTS RESULTANT FROM THE DD A-ICE WILL HAVE THE RESOLUTION OF THE GEOLOCATED PHOTON-DATA (EXPECTED AS 0.7 M ALONG-TRACK POSTINGS UNDER CLEAR ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS). OBJECTIVES OF THE PROPOSED WORK ARE TO EVALUATE THE QUALITY OF ICESAT-2 MEASUREMENTS WHEN ANALYZED WITH THE DDA-ICE (W.R.T. SPATIAL VARIABILITY ACCURACY PRECISION AND UNCERTAINTY) USING AIRBORNE DATA OF KEY GLACIER REGIONS IMPLEMENT THE APPROACH AS AN OPERATIONAL ALGORITHM ON THE NASA CLOUD INVESTIGATE THE FEASIBILITY OF PERFORMING REPEAT PROCESSING OF ALL ATL03 DATA OVER THE GREENLAND ICE SHEET AND ANALYZE FIRST ATLAS DATA RIGHT AFTER LAUNCH (AS SOON AS ATL03 DATA BECOME AVAILABLE) AIMED AT DERIVING FIRST ICESAT-2 RESULTS ON MELT AND ACCELERATION PROCESSES. THE IDEA IS TO SHOW WHAT TYPES OF RESULTS CAN BE GAINED FROM THE HIGH-RESOLUTION ATLAS DATA. PROTOTYPE ICESAT-2 ATLAS RESEARCH DATA PRODUCTS WILL BE DEVELOPED WITH APPLICATIONS IN MIND. THE EVALUATION OF SURFACE-HEIGHT DETERMINATION WILL INCLUDE COLLECTION OF AIRBORNE LASER ALTIMETER DATA TIME-LAPS IMAGERY AND REAL-TIME KINEMATIC (RTK) GPS DATA OF THE ICE SURFACE OF AN ARCTIC GLACIER DURING SURGE (NEGRIBREEN SVALBARD) AUGMENTING AN EXISTING PROJECT OF THE PI ALONG ICESAT-2 GROUND TRAC