Detecting short-term surface melt over Vestre Broggerbreen, Arctic glacier using indigenously developed unmanned air vehicles

In the Arctic, the impacts of global warming are strong and the rate of ice melting is increasingly accelerating due to warmer temperatures relative to snow accumulation. With recent advances in unmanned air vehicle (UAV) technology and image processing techniques, field measurements for cryosphere...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geocarto International
Main Authors: M. Geetha Priya, Krishna Venkatesh, Lohit Shivanna, Suresh Devaraj
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2022
Subjects:
surface melt
uav
glacier
polar
global warming
snow
Physical geography
GB3-5030
Arctic
Svalbard
Global warming
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1080/10106049.2020.1849416
https://doaj.org/article/03c9bcaf0d3a438fa1562ed59cb73a5a
Description
Summary:In the Arctic, the impacts of global warming are strong and the rate of ice melting is increasingly accelerating due to warmer temperatures relative to snow accumulation. With recent advances in unmanned air vehicle (UAV) technology and image processing techniques, field measurements for cryosphere studies have gained significance today. In the current report, an attempt is being made to measure glacier surface melt over a four-day period using UAV acquisitions and field measurements to improve India's scientific credentials in polar science. Two aerial surveys were performed on 14 and 17 September 2019 using an indigenous Quadcopter UAV over a portion of the Ablation area of Vestre Broggerbreen glacier, Svalbard, Arctic. To measure precise surface melt, surface topography reconstructed from the acquired aerial images is processed. Results concluded that a surface melt was observed ranging from 0.013 to 0.065 m, which agreed with the measurements in situ.

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