Operational Processing of Big Satellite Data for Monitoring Glacier Dynamics: Case Study of Muldrow Glacier

Abstract

Frequent acquisition of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data by the European Sentinel-1 satellites provides an opportunity for monitoring the dynamics of worldwide glaciers. We present a fully-automated processing system for producing multi-dimensional time series of glacier flow. We then use this fully-automated processing system to investigate the dynamics of Muldrow Glacier, located in the Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska, AK, USA) during the October 2014—November 2021 period. We compute north, east, and vertical Surface-Parallel-Flow (SPF) and non-Surface-Parallel-Flow (nSPF) components of flow velocity and displacement with an average temporal resolution of 9 days and grid spacing of 100 m. During this period, we observe a glacier surge, a manifold increase in glacier flow velocity, that started as early as 2017 and continues until the present; however, the near completion of this surge is apparent. This glacier previously surged in 1906–1912 (the exact date is unknown) and in 1956–1957. We present our results in different ways to emphasize various aspects of the observed surge and demonstrate the full capability of our processing system. As the availability of SAR data improves, we expect that the fully-automated processing systems, similar to the one presented here, will play an increasingly dominant role and soon entirely replace manual processing.