Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia
Global warming is causing glaciers in the Caucasus Mountains and around the world to lose mass at an accelerated pace. As a result of this rapid retreat, significant parts of the glacierized surface area can be covered with debris deposits, often making them indistinguishable from the surrounding la...
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Cambridge University Press
2021
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:d1ea4ccd6c074a708102e22a234b06d8 2023-05-15T16:57:33+02:00 Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia Iulian-Horia Holobâcă Levan G. Tielidze Kinga Ivan Mariam Elizbarashvili Mircea Alexe Daniel Germain Sorin Hadrian Petrescu Olimpiu Traian Pop George Gaprindashvili 2021-08-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.47 https://doaj.org/article/d1ea4ccd6c074a708102e22a234b06d8 EN eng Cambridge University Press https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022143021000472/type/journal_article https://doaj.org/toc/0022-1430 https://doaj.org/toc/1727-5652 doi:10.1017/jog.2021.47 0022-1430 1727-5652 https://doaj.org/article/d1ea4ccd6c074a708102e22a234b06d8 Journal of Glaciology, Vol 67, Pp 685-696 (2021) Chalaati Glacier coherence debris cover Greater Caucasus optical remote sensing SAR Ushba Glacier Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.47 2023-03-12T01:30:57Z Global warming is causing glaciers in the Caucasus Mountains and around the world to lose mass at an accelerated pace. As a result of this rapid retreat, significant parts of the glacierized surface area can be covered with debris deposits, often making them indistinguishable from the surrounding land surface by optical remote-sensing systems. Here, we present the DebCovG-carto toolbox to delineate debris-covered and debris-free glacier surfaces from non-glacierized regions. The algorithm uses synthetic aperture radar-derived coherence images and the normalized difference snow index applied to optical satellite data. Validating the remotely-sensed boundaries of Ushba and Chalaati glaciers using field GPS data demonstrates that the use of pairs of Sentinel-1 images (2019) from identical ascending and descending orbits can substantially improve debris-covered glacier surface detection. The DebCovG-carto toolbox leverages multiple orbits to automate the mapping of debris-covered glacier surfaces. This new automatic method offers the possibility of quickly correcting glacier mapping errors caused by the presence of debris and makes automatic mapping of glacierized surfaces considerably faster than the use of other subjective methods. Article in Journal/Newspaper Journal of Glaciology Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Journal of Glaciology 67 264 685 696 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
Chalaati Glacier coherence debris cover Greater Caucasus optical remote sensing SAR Ushba Glacier Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 |
spellingShingle |
Chalaati Glacier coherence debris cover Greater Caucasus optical remote sensing SAR Ushba Glacier Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 Iulian-Horia Holobâcă Levan G. Tielidze Kinga Ivan Mariam Elizbarashvili Mircea Alexe Daniel Germain Sorin Hadrian Petrescu Olimpiu Traian Pop George Gaprindashvili Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
topic_facet |
Chalaati Glacier coherence debris cover Greater Caucasus optical remote sensing SAR Ushba Glacier Environmental sciences GE1-350 Meteorology. Climatology QC851-999 |
description |
Global warming is causing glaciers in the Caucasus Mountains and around the world to lose mass at an accelerated pace. As a result of this rapid retreat, significant parts of the glacierized surface area can be covered with debris deposits, often making them indistinguishable from the surrounding land surface by optical remote-sensing systems. Here, we present the DebCovG-carto toolbox to delineate debris-covered and debris-free glacier surfaces from non-glacierized regions. The algorithm uses synthetic aperture radar-derived coherence images and the normalized difference snow index applied to optical satellite data. Validating the remotely-sensed boundaries of Ushba and Chalaati glaciers using field GPS data demonstrates that the use of pairs of Sentinel-1 images (2019) from identical ascending and descending orbits can substantially improve debris-covered glacier surface detection. The DebCovG-carto toolbox leverages multiple orbits to automate the mapping of debris-covered glacier surfaces. This new automatic method offers the possibility of quickly correcting glacier mapping errors caused by the presence of debris and makes automatic mapping of glacierized surfaces considerably faster than the use of other subjective methods. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Iulian-Horia Holobâcă Levan G. Tielidze Kinga Ivan Mariam Elizbarashvili Mircea Alexe Daniel Germain Sorin Hadrian Petrescu Olimpiu Traian Pop George Gaprindashvili |
author_facet |
Iulian-Horia Holobâcă Levan G. Tielidze Kinga Ivan Mariam Elizbarashvili Mircea Alexe Daniel Germain Sorin Hadrian Petrescu Olimpiu Traian Pop George Gaprindashvili |
author_sort |
Iulian-Horia Holobâcă |
title |
Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
title_short |
Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
title_full |
Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
title_fullStr |
Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
title_full_unstemmed |
Multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the Greater Caucasus, Georgia |
title_sort |
multi-sensor remote sensing to map glacier debris cover in the greater caucasus, georgia |
publisher |
Cambridge University Press |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.47 https://doaj.org/article/d1ea4ccd6c074a708102e22a234b06d8 |
genre |
Journal of Glaciology |
genre_facet |
Journal of Glaciology |
op_source |
Journal of Glaciology, Vol 67, Pp 685-696 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022143021000472/type/journal_article https://doaj.org/toc/0022-1430 https://doaj.org/toc/1727-5652 doi:10.1017/jog.2021.47 0022-1430 1727-5652 https://doaj.org/article/d1ea4ccd6c074a708102e22a234b06d8 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2021.47 |
container_title |
Journal of Glaciology |
container_volume |
67 |
container_issue |
264 |
container_start_page |
685 |
op_container_end_page |
696 |
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1766049121849835520 |