Extracting Time-Series of Wet-Snow Facies in Greenland Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data on Google Earth Engine

Abstract

Accurate information on the dynamic change of wet-snow facies (WSF) in Greenland is important in investigating the mass balance of Greenland ice sheets (GrIS) and assessing global sea level rise. In this study, we proposed a rapid WSF extraction algorithm, referred to as difference method, for extracting WSF at a continental scale and with high spatial resolution using the Sentinel-1 synthetic Aperture radar (SAR) data available on Google Earth Engine (GEE). We used this method to extract the WSF in Greenland from May to October in recent 6 years. Accuracy of the extracted results was evaluated using air temperature data from Greenland Automatic Weather Station (AWS). Results suggested that the difference method has good precision in extracting WSF from Sentinel-1 SAR data, and can process a large amount of data simply, quickly, and effectively.