Remote Sensing of Glaciers

Dear Colleagues,

Studying glaciers from a wide range of remote sensing platforms and techniques has become an expanding field over the past decade. Key reasons for this are the now free availability of raw data (e.g. opening of the Landsat archive), the wide recognition of glaciers as indicators of climate change, and the strong impact of their changes on society at global (sea-level rise), to regional (run-off, hydro-power) and local (hazards) scales. In addition, the remoteness of glaciers, and difficulty to gain access to most of them for direct measurements, means that remote sensing data often provides the only viable means for studying them. Satellite data also measure parameters that are hard to obtain in the field and they complement ground-based observations in space and time. Hence, remote sensing of glaciers and their changes plays a fundamental role for our understanding of their characteristics, dynamics, future evolution and response to climate change.

Using optical and microwave imaging as well as altimetry sensors (such as Landsat, ASTER, Sentinel 1/2/3, SRTM, ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR-X, ICESat, CryoSat 2), a wide range of glacier observations can be performed. Among the most common are mapping of glacier extents, and determination of elevation and volume changes, surface flow velocity, and snow lines. Several of them can be generated from the archived datasets over time periods of several decades, thus providing a robust means for change assessment and trend analysis. On the other hand, the ever-growing fleet of new satellites and sensors provide new possibilities for information extraction and accuracy improvement, but also require adaptation of existing algorithms to the new and advanced capabilities of the more recent sensors.

The Special Issue ‘Remote Sensing of Glaciers’ should provide a current overview on state-of-the-art methods for data retrieval from the diversity of sensors, as well as the latest applications of established methods to obtain new and quantitative information on glacier dynamics and changes over large regions. We focus on glaciers (and exclude the ice sheets of Greenland/Antarctica and their outlet glaciers and ice streams) to fully consider the specific challenges associated with remote sensing in steep, high-mountain topography. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Glacier and snow facies mapping and their changes through time
• Derivation of glacier elevation and volume changes from DEMs and/or altimetry
• Glacier surface velocities over large spatial regions and/or their trends over time
• Fusion of sensors and methods to determine glaciological phenomena (e.g. debris cover)
• Exploitation of new sensors (Sentinel 1A/1B and 2A, Landsat 8, PALSAR2, ...)
• Novel methods for the generation of glacier extents, facies, elevation/elevation changes or velocity/velocity changes
• Cross-comparison and integration of datasets derived from different sensors and platforms

Dr. Frank Paul
Dr. Kate Briggs
Dr. Robert McNabb
Dr. Christopher Nuth
Dr. Jan Wuite
Guest Editors

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