Grounding line retreat of Pope, Smith, and Kohler Glaciers, West Antarctica, measured with Sentinel-1a radar interferometry data

• Main Authors: Scheuchl, B, Mouginot, J, Rignot, E, Morlighem, M, Khazendar, A
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: eScholarship, University of California 2016
• Subjects: Grounding Line; Synthetic Aperture Radar; Sentinel-1; Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences; West Antarctica; Antarc*; Antarctica; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xh8k6m8

We employ Sentinel-1a C band satellite radar interferometry data in Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans mode to map the grounding line and ice velocity of Pope, Smith, and Kohler glaciers, in West Antarctica, for the years 2014–2016 and compare the results with those obtained using Earth Remote Sensing Satellites (ERS-1/2) in 1992, 1996, and 2011. We observe an ongoing, rapid grounding line retreat of Smith at 2km/yr (40km since 1996), an 11km retreat of Pope (0.5km/yr), and a 2km readvance of Kohler since 2011. The variability in glacier retreat is consistent with the distribution of basal slopes, i.e., fast along retrograde beds and slow along prograde beds. We find that several pinning points holding Dotson and Crosson ice shelves disappeared since 1996 due to ice shelf thinning, which signal the ongoing weakening of these ice shelves. Overall, the results indicate that ice shelf and glacier retreat in this sector remain unabated.