| Summary: | The ice-free areas of the South Shetland Islands are dominated by periglacial and glacial processes and landforms, closely associated with deposits of fluvial and coastal origin that are characteristic within the northern Antarctic Peninsula region. These areas are influenced by cold maritime climatic conditions and have experienced the greatest warming within the southern hemisphere over the past sixty years. As a result, freeze-thaw cycles are favoured implying dynamic processes in the active layer of the permafrost, which lead to the formation of different types of surface features. Studies have shown that these ice-free areas have often contained fragile ecosystems with a high biodiversity where many different plant and animal species are concentrated and an active hydrologic cycle during the Austral summer period. It is therefore important to monitor present-day active periglacial and glacial processes linked to recent global changes. Furthermore, determining the spatial distribution of diverse periglacial landforms will be key to detect the presence of permafrost. The objective of this work is to determine and monitor the spatial distribution of landforms of different origin, with special focus on those connected with periglacial processes and the presence of permafrost within ice-free areas. The studied area is located along the southern coast of Livingston Island between Hannah Point and Bernard Point using satellite-borne single and fully polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and techniques. A fully polarimetric fine RADARSAT-2 image as Single Look Complex data was acquired through the Canadian Space Agency within the framework of the Science and Operational Applications Research Program (Project SOAR-5169) on the 29th of March 2014. Single polarimetric SENTINEL-1 images of 2017 and 2018 were obtained through the European Space Agency. Pre-processing of the SAR data includes radiometric correction, using a speckle noise filter, developed specifically within the team for both SAR single ...
|
|---|