Geodetic mass balance record with rigorous uncertainty estimates deduced from aerial photographs and lidar data – Case study from Drangajökull ice cap, NW Iceland

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: E. Magnússon, J. Muñoz-Cobo Belart, F. Pálsson, H. Ágústsson, P. Crochet
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2016
• Subjects: geo; envir; Drangajökull; glacier; Ice cap; Iceland; The Cryosphere
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-159-2016; http://www.the-cryosphere.net/10/159/2016/tc-10-159-2016.pdf; https://doaj.org/article/dfd7e9f387d240aea89244eee2285c59

In this paper we describe how recent high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) can be used to extract glacier surface DEMs from old aerial photographs and to evaluate the uncertainty of the mass balance record derived from the DEMs. We present a case study for Drangajökull ice cap, NW Iceland. This ice cap covered an area of 144 km2 when it was surveyed with airborne lidar in 2011. Aerial photographs spanning all or most of the ice cap are available from survey flights in 1946, 1960, 1975, 1985, 1994 and 2005. All ground control points used to constrain the orientation of the aerial photographs were obtained from the high-resolution lidar DEM. The lidar DEM was also used to estimate errors of the extracted photogrammetric DEMs in ice- and snow-free areas, at nunataks and outside the glacier margin. The derived errors of each DEM were used to constrain a spherical semivariogram model, which along with the derived errors in ice- and snow-free areas were used as inputs into 1000 sequential Gaussian simulations (SGSims). The simulations were used to estimate the possible bias in the entire glaciated part of the DEM and the 95 % confidence level of this bias. This results in bias correction varying in magnitude between 0.03 m (in 1975) and 1.66 m (in 1946) and uncertainty values between ±0.21 m (in 2005) and ±1.58 m (in 1946). Error estimation methods based on more simple proxies would typically yield 2–4 times larger error estimates. The aerial photographs used were acquired between late June and early October. An additional seasonal bias correction was therefore estimated using a degree-day model to obtain the volume change between the start of 2 glaciological years (1 October). This correction was largest for the 1960 DEM, corresponding to an average elevation change of −3.5 m or approx. three-quarters of the volume change between the 1960 and the 1975 DEMs. The total uncertainty of the derived mass balance record is dominated by uncertainty in the volume changes caused by uncertainties of the SGSim bias ...