Satellite and ground based estimates for ice surface velocities in the part of central Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica: Implications for ice flux calculations

The ice sheet and glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland represent the largest sources of freshwater on planet Earth. The understanding and quantification of their dynamic properties such as albedo, precipitation, ice mass movement, and ice elevation changes are critical for the improved climate and m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Science
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Icesheet
Interferometry
Ice stream velocity
Ice fluxes
Mass balance
East Antarctica
Dronning Maud Land
Greenland
Antarc*
Antarctica
Ice Sheet
Polar Science
Online Access:https://nipr.repo.nii.ac.jp/?action=repository_uri&item_id=16878
http://id.nii.ac.jp/1291/00016747/
Description
Summary:The ice sheet and glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland represent the largest sources of freshwater on planet Earth. The understanding and quantification of their dynamic properties such as albedo, precipitation, ice mass movement, and ice elevation changes are critical for the improved climate and mass balance models. The present study utilizes space-borne optical and synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to measure the ice surface velocity at high spatial resolution for a part of the central Dronning Maud Land (cDML), East Antarctica. The datasets from Landsat-8 and Sentinel-1 SAR satellite are used for ice stream velocity estimation using feature-offset tracking and differential interferometric SAR (DInSAR) methods. The derived velocity products are validated with ground based stakes network at annual time scale. The fundamental ice flow laws are used to estimate the ice outflux or discharge for selected ice stream drainage basins of cDML at fluxgate locations. The ice stream basin has been delineated using combination of elevation, slope and continental scale velocity maps. The ice influx for study area is estimated using ECMWF fifth generation reanalysis (ERA5) and Regional Atmospheric Climate Model (RACMO) v2.3 model outputs. The estimated influx and outflux are in the ranges of 0.18–4.167 Gt/y and 0.201 to 1.278 Gt/y respectively, indicating net positive mass balance for the selected area.

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