Estimation the Movement of Glacier IN Qinhai-Tibetan Plateau Using Satellite Radar Interferometry

Abstract

The movement parameter of glacier is the very important factor of the glacier changes. And now, mainly two types of methods have been used for the estimation of glacier movement: differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry (D-InSAR) and Image matching (mainly used for optical data). Although the main potential of D-InSAR for glacier movement estimation has been shown in several case studies, its successful application is often limited by decorrelation. Due to the backscattering characteristic change of the individual scatters on glacier surface, the coherence of glacier surface will be entirely missing for the long temporal baseline (such as 35 days or more). In this paper, we present a novel method to monitor the movement of the whole glacier. According to glacier dynamics theory the glacier's movement is mainly affected by two factors, its gravity and pressures of the firn. The direct consequence of the whole glacier movement is that caused the deformation of the earth surface around the glacier. So we use the motion result extracted by D-InSAR of the earth's surface near the terminus of glacier to deduce the movement of the whole glacier.