The dynamics of ice as seen by interferometric SAR: A case study of Antarctic ice shelves in Dronning Maud Land -- Master en sciences et gestion de l'environnement, finalité sciences de l'environnement

• Main Author: Berger, Sophie
• Other Authors: Drews, Reinhard, Pattyn, Frank
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles 2013
• Subjects: Glaciologie; Télédétection; Interferometric SAR; Antarctica; Ice shelf; Antarctic; Dronning Maud Land; Roi Baudouin; The Antarctic; Antarc*; Ice Sheet; Ice Shelf; Ice Shelves
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2013/ULB-DIPOT:oai:dipot.ulb.ac.be:2013/176417; https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/176417/1/sberger_thesis.pdf

Ice shelves, which are mainly found in Antarctica consist of floating extensions of ice sheets.They provide an interface for the interactions between the ice sheet and the ocean. Althoughthey present their own flow dynamics, ice shelves remain attached to the grounded ice, thusregulate ice discharge of the ice sheet into the ocean. The control ice shelves exert on inlandice is called the Buttressing effect. A mass loss of ice shelves induces a loss of buttressing,which enables a greater discharge of ice into the ocean and contributes to the sea level rise.In a warming world, studying ice shelves and their dynamics become essential if we wantto quantify the Antarctic contribution to the future sea level rise.This thesis is a satellite-based SAR interferometry study of the ice shelves in the regionof Dronning Maud Land, Antarctica. SAR interferometry (InSAR) is an imaging techniquethat compares phase information from images taken at different times to measure surfacedisplacements between the different acquisitions. Based on SAR data from the ERS 1/2tandem mission (1995-1996), an horizontal flowfield covering the Roi Baudouin Ice shelf wascomputed with a 50m resolution. Shear-strain rates were also derived from the flowfield.Results show that the pinning point, near the ice shelf front plays a fundamental role in iceshelves dynamics, as it constraints and diverts the ice-flow. The role and location of pinningpoints are found to greatly contribute in explaining differences in flow regimes between theRoi Baudouin and two neighbouring ice shelves.Finally, the thesis focuses on other interferometric data in Dronning Maud Land toidentify other pinning points and investigate on their temporal variability, in link withtides. info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished