Derivation of mass balance and surface velocity of glaciers by means of high resolution synthetic aperture radar: application to the Patagonian Icefields and Antarctica

Abstract

Remote sensing has revolutionised traditional glaciology in the last decades. The valuable data of recent high resolution SAR missions are exploited in this thesis for the estimation of glacier mass balance and surface velocities. Both are crucial parameters for global glacier loss projections and related climate models. Recent TanDEM-X high resolution DEMs were combined with the SRTM DEM of 2000 to derive the ice volume loss of the Patagonian Icefields with unprecedented accuracy through the geodetic method. Particular emphasis was put on the estimation of the uncertainty of the geodetic mass balance, including critical aspects such as radar signal penetration in snow and ice. A processing chain was developed for the retrieval of detailed glacier velocity maps from TerraSAR-X data by means of incoherent cross-correlation and used to monitor several glaciers in Antarctica and Patagonia.