The Seasonal Evolution of the Percolation Zone in the Kangerlussuaq Section of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Project Description:

This project is in support of research that is investigating the spatio-temporal variations of refreezing in the fi rn of the Kangerlussuaq section of the Greenland ice sheet by the means of in-situ observations and remote sensing data. Specifically, this project is  exploring the possibilities of SAR in relating in-situ point observations (high temporal resolution) to extended areas (high spatial resolution) with the goal of retrieving firn estimates at high temporal resolution and over large spatial scales.

The project will focus on the 2016 melt season and will combine data from automatic weather stations with Sentinel-1 SAR data and DEM information from the Greenland Ice Mapping project. The approach will include (1) the pre-processing of all available Sentinel-1 SAR scenes;  (2) the extraction of the percolation zone from the data using SAR amplitude analysis; and (3) the comparison of the time evolution of the percolation zone through altitude bands with in-situ observations of air temperature and sub-surface temperature

Student Leading the Project:

Federico Covi, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Mapping Sag River Flooding using SAR Amplitude Data

Project Description:

Since the launch of Sentinel-1 (S-1), SAR has become a valuable tool in the monitoring of hazard events such as the tracking of floods. This project will look at the performance of Sentinel-1 for monitoring aufeis flooding events on Alaska’s North Slope, specifically aufeis hazards along the  Sagavanirktok River, AK. Amplitude change detection techniques will be used and applied to S-1 data covering the  2015 Sag River flood event. A comparison to flood maps produced from high-resolution TerraSAR-X SAR data (see Figure) will be done to evaluate flood mapping performance. The study may be expanded to the current break-up season in Alaska.

Student Leading the Project:

Richard Buzard, University of Alaska Fairbanks

Glacier Motion From SAR

Project Description:

This project will use time series of Sentinel-1 SAR images over  Steele and Walsh glaciers, Yukon Canada, to estimate their ice velocity with their variation in time. Ice motion tracking is done using Speckle tracking procedures embedded in the GAMMA Remote Sensing Software Tools.

Student Leading the Project:

Kenneth Arnoult, University of Alaska Fairbanks