Monitoring snow and ice surfaces on King George Island, Antarctic Peninsula, with high-resolution TerraSAR-X time series

Changes of glaciers and snow cover in polar regions affect a wide range of physical and ecosystem processes on land and in the adjacent marine environment. In this study, we investigated the potential of 11-day repeat high-resolution satellite image time series from the TerraSAR-X mission to derive glaciological and hydrological parameters on King George Island, Antarctica, between 25 October 2010 and 19 April 2011. The spatial pattern and temporal evolution of snow cover extent on ice-free areas can be monitored using multi-temporal coherence images. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) coherence is used to map glacier extent of land-terminating glaciers with an average accuracy of 25 m. Multi-temporal SAR colour composites identify the position of the late summer snow line at similar to 220 m a.s.l. Glacier surface velocities are obtained from intensity feature-tracking. Surface velocities near the calving front of Fourcade Glacier were up to 1.8 +/- 0.01 m d(-1). Using an intercept theorem based on fundamental geometric principles together with differential GPS field measurements, the ice discharge of Fourcade Glacier was estimated at 20 700 +/- 5500 m(3) d(-1) (corresponding to similar to 19 +/- 5 kt d(-1)). The rapidly changing surface conditions on King George Island and the lack of high-resolution digital elevation models for the region remain restrictions for the applicability of SAR data and the precision of derived products. Supplemental data are available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.853954.