SPIRIT. SPOT 5 stereoscopic survey of Polar Ice: Reference Images and Topographies during the fourth International Polar Year (2007-2009)

• Main Authors: Jérôme Korona, Etienne Berthier, Marc Bernard, Frédérique Rémy, Eric Thouvenot
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: International Polar Year; IPY
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.399.8072; http://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/39/79/12/PDF/Korona_et_al_ISPRS_2009_preprint.pdf

Monitoring the evolution of polar glaciers, ice caps and ice streams is of utmost importance because they constitute a good indicator of global climate change and contribute significantly to ongoing sea level rise. Accurate topographic surveys are particularly relevant as they reflect the geometric evolution of ice masses. Unfortunately, the precision and/or spatial coverage of current satellite missions (radar altimetry, ICESat) or field surveys are generally insufficient. Improving our knowledge of the topography of Polar Regions is the goal of the SPIRIT (SPOT 5 stereoscopic survey of Polar Ice: Reference Images and Topographies) international polar year (IPY) project. SPIRIT will allow (1) the acquisition of a large archive of SPOT 5 stereoscopic images covering most polar ice masses and, (2) the delivery of digital terrain models (DTM) to the scientific community. Here, we present the architecture of this project and the coverage achieved over northern and southern polar areas during the first year of IPY (July 2007 to April 2008). We also provide the first accuracy