Abstract
Glacier dynamics play an important role in the mass balance of many glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets. In this study we exploit Radarsat-2 (RS-2) Wide Fine (WF) data to determine the surface speed of Svalbard glaciers in the winters of 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 using Synthetic Aperture RADAR (SAR) offset and speckle tracking. The RS-2 WF mode combines the advantages of the large spatial coverage of the Wide mode (150 × 150 km) and the high pixel resolution (9 m) of the Fine mode and thus has a major potential for glacier velocity monitoring from space through offset and speckle tracking. Faster flowing glaciers (1.95 m·d−1–2.55 m·d−1) that are studied in detail are Nathorstbreen, Kronebreen, Kongsbreen and Monacobreen. Using our Radarsat-2 WF dataset, we compare the performance of two SAR tracking algorithms, namely the GAMMA Remote Sensing Software and a custom written MATLAB script (GRAY method) that has primarily been used in the Canadian Arctic. Both algorithms provide comparable results, especially for the faster flowing glaciers and the termini of slower tidewater glaciers. A comparison of the WF data to RS-2 Ultrafine and Wide mode data reveals the superiority of RS-2 WF data over the Wide mode data.
Highlights
Monitoring the dynamics of glaciers has become increasingly important as concern about climate change increases
This is especially true for marine terminating glaciers, where measurements of ice motion can be combined with ice thickness information to determine frontal ablation rates, and the contribution of glaciers and ice sheets to global sea level rise
Glacier surface velocity is known for many glaciers on Svalbard (e.g., [12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]), but none of these studies provide an overview of velocities across the entire archipelago
Summary
Monitoring the dynamics of glaciers has become increasingly important as concern about climate change increases. This is especially true for marine terminating glaciers, where measurements of ice motion can be combined with ice thickness information to determine frontal ablation rates, and the contribution of glaciers and ice sheets to global sea level rise. The first goal of this study is to provide the first complete surface velocity map for all glaciers on Svalbard. This information is crucial for tasks such as estimating frontal ablation rates (iceberg calving), and to understand if they are changing over time
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