Abstract
Abstract. A terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) of the type RIEGL VZ-6000 has been permanently installed and automated at Hintereisferner glacier located in the Ötztal Alps, Austria, to identify snow (re)distribution from surface height changes. A first case study is presented that shows and discusses detected snow distribution at the glacier after a snowfall event, together with concurrent snow erosion and deposition caused by avalanches. The paper shows the potential of a TLS system in a high mountain environment, which is also applicable to other environmental mapping applications. It introduces the setup of the TLS system, its automation procedure, and a first and preliminary uncertainty analysis. TLS data are generally influenced by four uncertainty sources: atmospheric conditions, scanning geometry, mechanical properties, and surface reflectance properties. The first three sources have significant influence on the TLS data at Hintereisferner, whereby the total accuracy of the TLS system is estimated to be in a range of a few decimetres, subject to ongoing more detailed data analysis.
Highlights
Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is an active sensing system that rapidly acquires high-resolution 3D point clouds of the Earth’s surface by emitting and receiving a pulsed laser light
The number and variety of remote sensing applications of TLS instruments continues to increase, including engineering and environmental mapping applications. One result of this development is the RIEGL VZ-6000, a long range TLS introduced by Riegl Laser Measurement Systems, which is suitable for remote sensing of snow and ice due to the scanning wavelength of 1064 nm at distances up to 6 km
We introduce the automated and permanent long-range TLS system Im Hinteren Eis (Sect. 2) at a valley glacier in the Austrian Alps
Summary
Terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) is an active sensing system that rapidly acquires high-resolution 3D point clouds of the Earth’s surface by emitting and receiving a pulsed laser light. Recent developments made it possible to scan at long (>2 km) ranges. The number and variety of remote sensing applications of TLS instruments continues to increase, including engineering and environmental mapping applications One result of this development is the RIEGL VZ-6000, a long range TLS introduced by Riegl Laser Measurement Systems, which is suitable for remote sensing of snow and ice due to the scanning wavelength of 1064 nm at distances up to 6 km. The paper laid a good groundwork for scanning glaciers at a long range but misses, and despite obvious noise in the data, to provide an uncertainty assessment of the scanner
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