Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery
Supraglacial lakes are an important component of the Greenland Ice Sheet's mass balance and hydrology, with their drainage affecting ice dynamics. This study uses imagery from the recently launched Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite to investigate supraglacial lakes in West Gr...
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ftunivcam:oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/265785 2024-02-04T10:00:44+01:00 Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery Miles, KE Willis, IC Benedek, CL Williamson, AG Tedesco, M 2017-07 application/pdf https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265785 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11178 eng eng Frontiers http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/feart.2017.00058 Frontiers in Earth Sciences https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265785 doi:10.17863/CAM.11178 Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Greenland hydrology supraglacial lakes drainage satellite remote sensing Sentinel-1 Landsat-8 Article 2017 ftunivcam https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11178 2024-01-11T23:28:01Z Supraglacial lakes are an important component of the Greenland Ice Sheet's mass balance and hydrology, with their drainage affecting ice dynamics. This study uses imagery from the recently launched Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite to investigate supraglacial lakes in West Greenland. A semi-automated algorithm is developed to detect surface lakes from Sentinel-1 images during the 2015 summer. A combined Landsat-8 and Sentinel-1 dataset, which has a comparable temporal resolution to MODIS (3 days vs. daily) but a higher spatial resolution (25–40 vs. 250–500 m), is then used together with a fully automated lake drainage detection algorithm. Rapid (<4 days) and slow (>4 days) drainages are investigated for both small (<0.125 km2, the minimum size detectable by MODIS) and large (≥0.125 km2) lakes through the summer. Drainage events of small lakes occur at lower elevations (mean 159 m), and slightly earlier (mean 4.5 days) in the melt season than those of large lakes. The analysis is extended manually into the early winter to calculate the dates and elevations of lake freeze-through more precisely than is possible with optical imagery (mean 30 August; 1,270 m mean elevation). Finally, the Sentinel-1 imagery is used to detect subsurface lakes and, for the first time, their dates of appearance and freeze-through (mean 9 August and 7 October, respectively). These subsurface lakes occur at higher elevations than the surface lakes detected in this study (mean 1,593 and 1,185 m, respectively). Sentinel-1 imagery therefore provides great potential for tracking melting, water movement and freezing within both the firn zone and ablation area of the Greenland Ice Sheet. KM thanks Lucy Cavendish College (University of Cambridge) and the BB Roberts and William Vaughan Lewis Funds for financial assistance to attend the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2016, where preliminary findings were presented and valuable feedback obtained. AW was funded by a UK Natural Environment Research Council ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Greenland Ice Sheet Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository Greenland The Sentinel ENVELOPE(73.317,73.317,-52.983,-52.983) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository |
op_collection_id |
ftunivcam |
language |
English |
topic |
Greenland hydrology supraglacial lakes drainage satellite remote sensing Sentinel-1 Landsat-8 |
spellingShingle |
Greenland hydrology supraglacial lakes drainage satellite remote sensing Sentinel-1 Landsat-8 Miles, KE Willis, IC Benedek, CL Williamson, AG Tedesco, M Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
topic_facet |
Greenland hydrology supraglacial lakes drainage satellite remote sensing Sentinel-1 Landsat-8 |
description |
Supraglacial lakes are an important component of the Greenland Ice Sheet's mass balance and hydrology, with their drainage affecting ice dynamics. This study uses imagery from the recently launched Sentinel-1A Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellite to investigate supraglacial lakes in West Greenland. A semi-automated algorithm is developed to detect surface lakes from Sentinel-1 images during the 2015 summer. A combined Landsat-8 and Sentinel-1 dataset, which has a comparable temporal resolution to MODIS (3 days vs. daily) but a higher spatial resolution (25–40 vs. 250–500 m), is then used together with a fully automated lake drainage detection algorithm. Rapid (<4 days) and slow (>4 days) drainages are investigated for both small (<0.125 km2, the minimum size detectable by MODIS) and large (≥0.125 km2) lakes through the summer. Drainage events of small lakes occur at lower elevations (mean 159 m), and slightly earlier (mean 4.5 days) in the melt season than those of large lakes. The analysis is extended manually into the early winter to calculate the dates and elevations of lake freeze-through more precisely than is possible with optical imagery (mean 30 August; 1,270 m mean elevation). Finally, the Sentinel-1 imagery is used to detect subsurface lakes and, for the first time, their dates of appearance and freeze-through (mean 9 August and 7 October, respectively). These subsurface lakes occur at higher elevations than the surface lakes detected in this study (mean 1,593 and 1,185 m, respectively). Sentinel-1 imagery therefore provides great potential for tracking melting, water movement and freezing within both the firn zone and ablation area of the Greenland Ice Sheet. KM thanks Lucy Cavendish College (University of Cambridge) and the BB Roberts and William Vaughan Lewis Funds for financial assistance to attend the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2016, where preliminary findings were presented and valuable feedback obtained. AW was funded by a UK Natural Environment Research Council ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Miles, KE Willis, IC Benedek, CL Williamson, AG Tedesco, M |
author_facet |
Miles, KE Willis, IC Benedek, CL Williamson, AG Tedesco, M |
author_sort |
Miles, KE |
title |
Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
title_short |
Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
title_full |
Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
title_fullStr |
Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
title_full_unstemmed |
Toward Monitoring Surface and Subsurface Lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet Using Sentinel-1 SAR and Landsat-8 OLI Imagery |
title_sort |
toward monitoring surface and subsurface lakes on the greenland ice sheet using sentinel-1 sar and landsat-8 oli imagery |
publisher |
Frontiers |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265785 https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11178 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(73.317,73.317,-52.983,-52.983) |
geographic |
Greenland The Sentinel |
geographic_facet |
Greenland The Sentinel |
genre |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
genre_facet |
Greenland Ice Sheet |
op_relation |
https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/265785 doi:10.17863/CAM.11178 |
op_rights |
Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.11178 |
_version_ |
1789966178466136064 |