Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data
For studying the flow of glaciers and their response to climate change it is important to detect glacier surges. Here, we compute within Google Earth Engine the normalized differences between winter maxima of Sentinel-1 C-band radar backscatter image stacks over subsequent years. We arrive at a glob...
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2021
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 https://doaj.org/article/c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 2023-05-15T18:32:25+02:00 Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data P. W. Leclercq A. Kääb B. Altena 2021-10-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 https://doaj.org/article/c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 EN eng Copernicus Publications https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/4901/2021/tc-15-4901-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 The Cryosphere, Vol 15, Pp 4901-4907 (2021) Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 2022-12-31T05:55:01Z For studying the flow of glaciers and their response to climate change it is important to detect glacier surges. Here, we compute within Google Earth Engine the normalized differences between winter maxima of Sentinel-1 C-band radar backscatter image stacks over subsequent years. We arrive at a global map of annual backscatter changes, which are for glaciers in most cases related to changed crevassing associated with surge-type activity. For our demonstration period 2018–2019 we detected 69 surging glaciers, with many of them not classified so far as surge type. Comparison with glacier surface velocities shows that we reliably find known surge activities. Our method can support operational monitoring of glacier surges and some other special events such as large rock and snow avalanches. Article in Journal/Newspaper The Cryosphere Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles The Cryosphere 15 10 4901 4907 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
spellingShingle |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 P. W. Leclercq A. Kääb B. Altena Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
topic_facet |
Environmental sciences GE1-350 Geology QE1-996.5 |
description |
For studying the flow of glaciers and their response to climate change it is important to detect glacier surges. Here, we compute within Google Earth Engine the normalized differences between winter maxima of Sentinel-1 C-band radar backscatter image stacks over subsequent years. We arrive at a global map of annual backscatter changes, which are for glaciers in most cases related to changed crevassing associated with surge-type activity. For our demonstration period 2018–2019 we detected 69 surging glaciers, with many of them not classified so far as surge type. Comparison with glacier surface velocities shows that we reliably find known surge activities. Our method can support operational monitoring of glacier surges and some other special events such as large rock and snow avalanches. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
P. W. Leclercq A. Kääb B. Altena |
author_facet |
P. W. Leclercq A. Kääb B. Altena |
author_sort |
P. W. Leclercq |
title |
Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
title_short |
Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
title_full |
Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
title_fullStr |
Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
title_full_unstemmed |
Brief communication: Detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of Sentinel-1 radar data |
title_sort |
brief communication: detection of glacier surge activity using cloud computing of sentinel-1 radar data |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 https://doaj.org/article/c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 |
genre |
The Cryosphere |
genre_facet |
The Cryosphere |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 15, Pp 4901-4907 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/4901/2021/tc-15-4901-2021.pdf https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0416 https://doaj.org/toc/1994-0424 doi:10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://doaj.org/article/c3117ad6eb8b4ce4ba73aed7aec27ac5 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-4901-2021 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
15 |
container_issue |
10 |
container_start_page |
4901 |
op_container_end_page |
4907 |
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1766216523824758784 |