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Cryospheric Remote Sensing III

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Dear Colleagues,

The cryosphere—the Earth's icy regions—embraces sea ice, lake and river ice, ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers, icebergs, snow cover, permafrost and frozen ground generally. The above-surface part of the cryosphere occupies around one-sixth of the Earth's surface and is located in places that are generally very remote from human habitation and infrastructure and in challenging climatic conditions. Its study is thus well-suited to the use of remote sensing techniques, especially those operated from spaceborne platforms. Snow and ice research was, in fact, early to adopt remote sensing methods and to develop new algorithms for extracting information from them. Quantitative data on the cryosphere are urgently needed to enhance our understanding of the behaviour of the global climate system, as well as for more locally centred applications. Some of the best known and most telling indications of climatic behaviour have already been obtained from cryospheric measurements. The first Special Issue of Remote Sensing on cryospheric remote sensing was published in 2013, and the second one in 2018. The pace of development has increased, and another Special Issue on this subject is now called for. We hope to be able to present a broad view of the state of the art in cryospheric remote sensing. Contributions are invited that present new measurements of any of the components of the cryosphere using data collected from spaceborne or airborne (including UAV) platforms with passive or active remote sensing systems or new ways of collecting or analysing remotely sensed data. Review papers are also welcome.

Dr. Gareth Rees
Guest Editor

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19 pages, 5722 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

60 Years of Glacier Elevation and Mass Changes in the Maipo River Basin, Central Andes of Chile

by David Farías-Barahona, Álvaro Ayala, Claudio Bravo, Sebastián Vivero, Thorsten Seehaus, Saurabh Vijay, Marius Schaefer, Franco Buglio, Gino Casassa and Matthias H. Braun

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(10), 1658; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12101658 - 21 May 2020

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 6760

Abstract

Glaciers in the central Andes of Chile are fundamental freshwater sources for ecosystems and communities. Overall, glaciers in this region have shown continuous recession and down-wasting, but long-term glacier mass balance studies providing precise estimates of these changes are scarce. Here, we present the first long-term (1955–2013/2015), region-specific glacier elevation and mass change estimates for the Maipo River Basin, from which the densely populated metropolitan region of Chile obtains most of its freshwater supply. We calculated glacier elevation and mass changes using historical topographic maps, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), TerraSAR-X add-on for Digital Elevation Measurements (TanDEM-X), and airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) digital elevation models. The results indicated a mean regional glacier mass balance of −0.12 ± 0.06 m w.e.a⁻¹, with a total mass loss of 2.43 ± 0.26 Gt for the Maipo River Basin between 1955–2013. The most negative glacier mass balance was the Olivares sub-basin, with a mean value of −0.29 ± 0.07 m w.e.a⁻¹. We observed spatially heterogeneous glacier elevation and mass changes between 1955 and 2000, and more negative values between 2000 and 2013, with an acceleration in ice thinning rates starting in 2010, which coincides with the severe drought. Our results provide key information to improve glaciological and hydrological projections in a region where water resources are under pressure. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cryospheric Remote Sensing III)

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35 pages, 10546 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Glacier Mass Balance in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains between 2000 and 2017 Retrieved from ZiYuan-3 Stereo Images and the SRTM DEM

by Shaoting Ren, Massimo Menenti, Li Jia, Jing Zhang, Jingxiao Zhang and Xin Li

Remote Sens. 2020, 12(5), 864; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12050864 - 7 Mar 2020

Cited by 33 | Viewed by 4964

Abstract

Mountain glaciers are excellent indicators of climate change and have an important role in the terrestrial water cycle and food security in many parts of the world. Glaciers are the major water source of rivers and lakes in the Nyainqentanglha Mountains (NM) region, where the glacier area has the second largest extent on the Tibetan Plateau. The potential of the high spatial resolution ZiYuan-3 (ZY-3) Three-Line-Array (TLA) stereo images to retrieve glacier mass balance has not been sufficiently explored. In this study, we optimized the procedure to extract a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from ZY-3 TLA stereo images and estimated the geodetic mass balance of representative glaciers in the two typical areas of the NM using ZY-3 DEMs and the C-band Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) DEM in three periods, i.e., 2000–2013, 2013–2017 and 2000–2017. The results provide detailed information towards better understanding of glacier change and specifically show that: (1) with our new stereo procedure, ZY-3 TLA data can significantly increase point cloud density and decrease invalid data on the glacier surface map to generate a high resolution (5 m) glacier mass balance map; (2) the glacier mass balance in both the Western Nyainqentanglha Mountains (WNM) and Eastern Nyainqentanglha Mountains (ENM) was negative in 2000–2017, and experienced faster mass loss in recent years (2013–2017) in the WNM. Overall, the glaciers in the western and eastern NM show different change patterns since they are influenced by different climate regimes; the glacier mass balances in WNM was –0.22 ± 0.23 m w.e. a⁻¹ and –0.43 ± 0.06 m w.e. a⁻¹ in 2000–2013 and 2013–2017, respectively, while in 2000–2017, it was –0.30 ± 0.19 m w.e. a⁻¹ in the WNM and –0.56 ± 0.20 m w.e. a⁻¹ in the ENM; (3) in the WNM, the glaciers experienced mass loss in 2000–2013 and 2013–2017 in the ablation zone, while in the accumulation zone mass increased in 2000–2013 and a large mass loss occurred in 2013–2017; as regards the ENM, the glacier mass balance was negative in 2000–2017 in both zones; (4) glacier mass balance can be affected by the fractional abundance of debris and glacier slope; (5) the glacier mass balances retrieved by ZY-3 and TanDEM-X data agreed well in the ablation zone, while a large difference occurred in the accumulation zone because of the snow/firn penetration of the X-band SAR signal. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cryospheric Remote Sensing III)

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