Glacier-wide seasonal and annual geodetic mass balances from Pléiades stereo images: application to the Glacier d'Argentière, French Alps

• Published in: Journal of Glaciology
• Main Authors: Luc Beraud, Diego Cusicanqui, Antoine Rabatel, Fanny Brun, Christian Vincent, Delphine Six
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press 2023
• Subjects: Digital elevation model; mass balance; mountain glacier; Pléiades satellites; remote sensing; Environmental sciences; GE1-350; Meteorology. Climatology; QC851-999; Journal of Glaciology
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2022.79; https://doaj.org/article/70668344236c4bfeb5d318bcb6e2c720

The increased availability of high-resolution and high-quality digital elevation models (DEMs) allows for the investigation of small-scale glaciological changes and improved precision in geodetic mass-balance estimates. However, high precision and careful methodological choices are required to retrieve glacier-wide mass changes at annual to seasonal time scales. Here, we used a 7-year time series of 12 DEMs of the Glacier d'Argentière, in the French Alps, derived from the Pléiades optical satellites to assess the ability of sub-metre stereoscopic satellite images to retrieve annual-to-seasonal mass balances. We found good agreement between the five annual and the four winter mass-balance values estimated using a geodetic method and those of in situ glaciological measurements: mean values via the geodetic method are −0.66 m w.e. and 1.47 m w.e. for annual and winter balances, respectively; mean absolute discrepancies are 0.25 m w.e. (annual) and 0.36 m w.e. (winter). Our study identified three main limitations of this methodology: (i) the intrinsic DEM precision; (ii) the lack of control over the satellite acquisition dates; and (iii) the density assumption. The consistency between the methods demonstrates the potential of short time-scale glacier mass-balance monitoring using very high-resolution satellite images.