Mapping of large magnitude discontinuous sea ice motion

• Published in: SIGSPATIAL Special
• Main Authors: Thomas, M., Kambhamettu, C., Geiger, C. A.
• Other Authors: Division of Polar Programs
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) 2009
• Subjects: Sea ice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1517463.1517469; https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1517463.1517469

In this work, we attempt to extend the body of knowledge on sea ice motion tracking in two specific directions. The first direction is the development of a computationally efficient, high resolution motion tracking system with a resolution of 400m, which is an order of magnitude greater than the currently available standard data products (3--5km). Validation of this method using GPS measurements shows an average error that is less than 0.06cm/s. The second direction is the development of objective analysis technique to handle motion at close proximity to discontinuities. The goal of this second direction is to identify and track discontinuous features such as cracks, leads, ridges and other material damage zones. These developments allow motion to be estimated at a high resolution in a robust manner (validated against various noise models). With the observed changes in global climate, sparked by variations in the sea ice thickness and extent, our long term goal is to use this system to merge the "temporally rich" GPS measurements with the "spatially rich" measurements from satellite images.