The Use of SAR Offset Tracking for Detecting Mountain Glacier Movement

Abstract

Glaciers are an important source of fresh water on earth, mainly distributed in polar regions and high mountain areas in middle and high latitudes. Glacier movement can reflect global or regional climate change, and mountain glaciers in middle and high latitudes are more sensitive to climate change. Located in the Karakoram Mountains, Baltoro Glacier is a typical mountain glacier. Due to the complex terrain and extreme weather factors, traditional measurement methods are difficult to monitor its movement. In addition, due to poor coherence, SAR interferometry is difficult to obtain the characteristics of long-term glacier movement in the region. In this study, SAR offset tracking technology was used to continuously monitor the movement status of the glacier for three years from 2018 to 2020. The maximum movement rate of the glacier reached 0.196m/day and the minimum movement rate was 0.074m/day in each monitoring period. The monitoring results show that the characteristics of glacier movement are positively correlated with the temperature situation in this area. This technique has obvious advantages in glacier movement monitoring and is beneficial to reflect the characteristics of climate change through long-term continuous monitoring of glacier movement.