scholarly journals Antarctic Supraglacial Lake Detection Using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 Imagery: Towards Continental Generation of Lake Volumes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahsa Moussavi ◽  
Allen Pope ◽  
Anna Halberstadt ◽  
Luke Trusel ◽  
Leanne Cioffi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Surface Hydrology ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Dual Sensor ◽  
Extensive Surface ◽  
Image Pairs ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Sentinel 2

Melt and supraglacial lakes are precursors to ice shelf collapse and subsequent accelerated ice sheet mass loss. We used data from the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 satellites to develop a threshold-based method for detection of lakes found on the Antarctic ice shelves, calculate their depths and thus their volumes. To achieve this, we focus on four key areas: the Amery, Roi Baudouin, Nivlisen, and Riiser-Larsen ice shelves, which are all characterized by extensive surface meltwater features. To validate our products, we compare our results against those obtained by an independent method based on a supervised classification scheme (e.g., Random Forest algorithm). Additional verification is provided by manual inspection of results for nearly 1000 Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images. Our dual-sensor approach will enable constructing high-resolution time series of lake volumes. Therefore, to ensure interoperability between the two datasets, we evaluate depths from contemporaneous Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 image pairs. Our assessments point to a high degree of correspondence, producing an average R2 value of 0.85, no bias, and an average RMSE of 0.2 m. We demonstrate our method’s ability to characterize lake evolution by presenting first evidence of drainage events outside of the Antarctic Peninsula on the Amery Ice shelf. The methods presented here pave the way to upscaling throughout the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 observational record across Antarctica to produce a first-ever continental dataset of supraglacial lake volumes. Such a dataset will improve our understanding of the influence of surface hydrology on ice shelf stability, and thus, future projections of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise.

scholarly journals Formation of sea ice ponds from ice-shelf runoff, adjacent to the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica

2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (82) ◽  
pp. 73-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant J. Macdonald ◽  
Predrag Popović ◽  
David P. Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Added Mass ◽  
Surface Melting ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Surface Hydrology ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Arctic Ponds ◽  
Sentinel 2

AbstractPonds that form on sea ice can cause it to thin or break-up, which can promote calving from an adjacent ice shelf. Studies of sea ice ponds have predominantly focused on Arctic ponds formed by in situ melting/ponding. Our study documents another mechanism for the formation of sea ice ponds. Using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images from the 2015–16 to 2018–19 austral summers, we analyze the evolution of sea ice ponds that form adjacent to the McMurdo Ice Shelf, Antarctica. We find that each summer, meltwater flows from the ice shelf onto the sea ice and forms large (up to 9 km2) ponds. These ponds decrease the sea ice's albedo, thinning it. We suggest the added mass of runoff causes the ice to flex, potentially promoting sea-ice instability by the ice-shelf front. As surface melting on ice shelves increases, we suggest that ice-shelf surface hydrology will have a greater effect on sea-ice stability.

Automated mapping of Antarctic supraglacial lakes and streams using machine learning

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariel Dirscherl ◽  
Andreas Dietz ◽  
Celia Baumhoer ◽  
Christof Kneisel ◽  
Claudia Kuenzer
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Mass Balance ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Ice Dynamics ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Sentinel 2

<p>Antarctica stores ~91 % of the global ice mass making it the biggest potential contributor to global sea-level-rise. With increased surface air temperatures during austral summer as well as in consequence of global climate change, the ice sheet is subject to surface melting resulting in the formation of supraglacial lakes in local surface depressions. Supraglacial meltwater features may impact Antarctic ice dynamics and mass balance through three main processes. First of all, it may cause enhanced ice thinning thus a potentially negative Antarctic Surface Mass Balance (SMB). Second, the temporary injection of meltwater to the glacier bed may cause transient ice speed accelerations and increased ice discharge. The last mechanism involves a process called hydrofracturing i.e. meltwater-induced ice shelf collapse caused by the downward propagation of surface meltwater into crevasses or fractures, as observed along large coastal sections of the northern Antarctic Peninsula. Despite the known impact of supraglacial meltwater features on ice dynamics and mass balance, the Antarctic surface hydrological network remains largely understudied with an automated method for supraglacial lake and stream detection still missing. Spaceborne remote sensing and data of the Sentinel missions in particular provide an excellent basis for the monitoring of the Antarctic surface hydrological network at unprecedented spatial and temporal coverage.</p><p>In this study, we employ state-of-the-art machine learning for automated supraglacial lake and stream mapping on basis of optical Sentinel-2 satellite data. With more detail, we use a total of 72 Sentinel-2 acquisitions distributed across the Antarctic Ice Sheet together with topographic information to train and test the selected machine learning algorithm. In general, our machine learning workflow is designed to discriminate between surface water, ice/snow, rock and shadow being further supported by several automated post-processing steps. In order to ensure the algorithm’s transferability in space and time, the acquisitions used for training the machine learning model are chosen to cover the full circle of the 2019 melt season and the data selected for testing the algorithm span the 2017 and 2018 melt seasons. Supraglacial lake predictions are presented for several regions of interest on the East and West Antarctic Ice Sheet as well as along the Antarctic Peninsula and are validated against randomly sampled points in the underlying Sentinel-2 RGB images. To highlight the performance of our model, we specifically focus on the example of the Amery Ice Shelf in East Antarctica, where we applied our algorithm on Sentinel-2 data in order to present the temporal evolution of maximum lake extent during three consecutive melt seasons (2017, 2018 and 2019).</p>

Recent glacial advance in the western Weddell Sea Sector driven by anomalous sea ice circulation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frazer Christie ◽  
Toby Benham ◽  
Julian Dowdeswell
Keyword(s):  
Sea Ice ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Weddell Sea ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Total Contribution ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
The Antarctic

<p>The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming regions on Earth. There, the recent destabilization of the Larsen A and B ice shelves has been directly attributed to this warming, in concert with anomalous changes in ocean circulation. Having rapidly accelerated and retreated following the demise of Larsen A and B, the inland glaciers once feeding these ice shelves now form a significant proportion of Antarctica’s total contribution to global sea-level rise, and have become an exemplar for the fate of the wider Antarctic Ice Sheet under a changing climate. Together with other indicators of glaciological instability observable from satellites, abrupt pre-collapse changes in ice shelf terminus position are believed to have presaged the imminent disintegration of Larsen A and B, which necessitates the need for routine, close observation of this sector in order to accurately forecast the future stability of the Antarctic Peninsula Ice Sheet. To date, however, detailed records of ice terminus position along this region of Antarctica only span the observational period c.1950 to 2008, despite several significant changes to the coastline over the last decade, including the calving of giant iceberg A-68a from Larsen C Ice Shelf in 2017.</p><p>Here, we present high-resolution, annual records of ice terminus change along the entire western Weddell Sea Sector, extending southwards from the former Larsen A Ice Shelf on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula to the periphery of Filchner Ice Shelf. Terminus positions were recovered primarily from Sentinel-1a/b, TerraSAR-X and ALOS-PALSAR SAR imagery acquired over the period 2009-2019, and were supplemented with Sentinel-2a/b, Landsat 7 ETM+ and Landsat 8 OLI optical imagery across regions of complex terrain.</p><p>Confounding Antarctic Ice Sheet-wide trends of increased glacial recession and mass loss over the long-term satellite era, we detect glaciological advance along 83% of the ice shelves fringing the eastern Antarctic Peninsula between 2009 and 2019. With the exception of SCAR Inlet, where the advance of its terminus position is attributable to long-lasting ice dynamical processes following the disintegration of Larsen B, this phenomenon lies in close agreement with recent observations of unchanged or arrested rates of ice flow and thinning along the coastline. Global climate reanalysis and satellite passive-microwave records reveal that this spatially homogenous advance can be attributed to an enhanced buttressing effect imparted on the eastern Antarctic Peninsula’s ice shelves, governed primarily by regional-scale increases in the delivery and concentration of sea ice proximal to the coastline.</p>

scholarly journals The flexural dynamics of melting ice shelves

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (63) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas R. MacAyeal ◽  
Olga V. Sergienko
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Numerical Solutions ◽  
Water Mass ◽  
Gradual Increase ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Mass Loads ◽  
The Antarctic

AbstractA conspicuous precursor of catastrophic ice-shelf break-up along the Antarctic Peninsula, reported widely in the literature, is the gradual increase in surface melting and consequent proliferation of supraglacial lakes and dolines. Here we present analytical and numerical solutions for the flexure stresses within an ice shelf covered by lakes and dolines, both isolated and arrayed. We conclude that surface water promotes ice-shelf instability in two ways: (1) by water-assisted crevasse penetration, as previously noted, and (2) by the inducement of strong tensile flexure stresses (exceeding background spreading stress by 10–100 times) in response to surface water mass loads and ‘hydrostatic rebound’ occurring when meltwater lakes drain.

A 3-D Model of Antarctic Ice Shelf Surface Hydrology

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sammie Buzzard ◽  
Alex Robel
Keyword(s):  
Comprehensive Model ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Lateral Transport ◽  
Surface Hydrology ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Future Evolution ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
D Model ◽  
Key Questions

<p>The formation of surface meltwater has been linked with the disintegration of many ice shelves in the Antarctic Peninsula over the last several decades. Despite the importance of surface meltwater production and transport to ice shelf stability, knowledge of these processes is still lacking. Understanding the surface hydrology of ice shelves is an essential first step to reliably project future sea level rise from ice sheet melt.<br><br>In order to better understand the processes driving meltwater distribution on ice shelves, we present results from case studies using a new 3-D model of surface hydrology for Antarctic ice shelves. It is the first comprehensive model of surface hydrology to be developed for Antarctic ice shelves, enabling us to incorporate key processes such as the lateral transport of surface meltwater. Recent observations suggest that surface hydrology processes on ice shelves are more complex than previously thought, and that processes such as lateral routing of meltwater across ice shelves, ice shelf flexure and surface debris all play a role in the location and influence of meltwater. Our model allows us to account for these and is calibrated and validated through both remote sensing and field observations. Here we present results from in depth studies from selected ice shelves with significant surface melt features.<br><br>This community-driven, open-access model has been developed with input from observations, and allows us to provide new insights into surface meltwater distribution on Antarctica’s ice shelves. This enables us to answer key questions about their past and future evolution under changing atmospheric conditions and vulnerability to meltwater driven hydrofracture and collapse.</p>

scholarly journals An inventory of supraglacial lakes and channels across the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diarmuid Corr ◽  
Amber Leeson ◽  
Malcolm McMillan ◽  
Ce Zhang ◽  
Thomas Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
The West ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
West Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
West Antarctic ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Warming World ◽  
Sentinel 2

Abstract. Quantifying the extent and distribution of supraglacial hydrology, i.e. lakes and streams, is important for understanding the mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet, and its consequent contribution to global sea level rise. The existence of meltwater on the ice surface has the potential to affect ice shelf stability and grounded ice flow, through hydrofracturing and the associated delivery of meltwater to the bed. In this study, we systematically map all observable supraglacial lakes and streams in West Antarctica, by applying a semi-automated Dual-NDWI (Normalised Difference Water Index) approach to > 2000 images acquired by the Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 satellites during January 2017. We use a K-Means clustering method to partition water into lakes and streams, which is important for understanding the dynamics and inter-connectivity of the hydrological system. When compared to a manually-delineated reference dataset on three Antarctic test sites, our approach achieves average values for sensitivity (85.3 % and 77.6 %), specificity (99.1 % and 99.7 %) and accuracy (98.7 % and 98.3 %) for Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 acquisitions, respectively. In total, we identified 10,478 supraglacial features (10,223 lakes and 255 channels) on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and Antarctic Peninsula (AP), with a combined area of 119.4 km2 (114.7 km2 lakes, 4.7 km2 channels). 27.3 % of feature area was found on grounded ice, 17.8 % of feature area comprised lakes which crossed the grounding line, while 54.9 % of feature area was found on floating ice shelves. New continental-scale inventories such as these, the first produced for WAIS and AP, are made possible by the recent expansion in satellite data provision. The inventories provide a baseline for future studies and a benchmark to monitor the development of Antarctica’s surface hydrology in a warming world, and thus enhance our capability to predict the collapse of ice shelves in the future. The dataset is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5109856 (Corr et al., 2021).

Inter-annual variability in supraglacial lakes around East Antarctica

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Arthur ◽  
Chris Stokes ◽  
Stewart Jamieson ◽  
Rachel Carr ◽  
Amber Leeson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Model ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Flow Acceleration ◽  
Air Content ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Global Sea Level

<p>Surface meltwater ponding can weaken and trigger the rapid disintegration of Antarctic ice shelves which buttress the ice sheet, causing ice flow acceleration and global sea-level rise. While supraglacial lakes (SGLs) are relatively well documented during some years and selected ice shelves in Antarctica, we have little understanding of how Antarctic-wide SGL coverage varies between melt seasons. Here, we present a record of SGL evolution around the peak of the melt season on the East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) over seven consecutive years. Our findings are based on a threshold-based algorithm applied to 2175 Landsat 8 images during the month of January from 2014 to 2020. We find that EAIS-wide SGL volume fluctuates inter-annually by up to ~80%. Moreover, patterns within regions and on neighbouring ice shelves are not necessarily synchronous. Over the whole EAIS, total SGL volume was greatest in January 2017, dominated by the Amery and Roi Baudouin ice shelves, and lowest in January 2016. Excluding these two ice shelves, SGL volume peaked in January 2020. Preliminary results suggest EAIS-wide total SGL volume and extent are weakly correlated with firn model simulations of firn air content, surface melt and minimum ice lens depth predicted by the regional climate model MAR. On certain ice shelves, years with peak SGL volume correspond with minimum firn air content. This work provides important constraints for numerical ice-shelf and ice-sheet model predictions of future Antarctic surface meltwater distributions and the potential impact on ice-sheet stability and flow.  </p>

scholarly journals Modelling perennial firn aquifers in the Antarctic Peninsula (1979–2016)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Melchior van Wessem ◽  
Christian R. Steger ◽  
Nander Wever ◽  
Michiel R. van den Broeke
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
Climate Model ◽  
Liquid Water Content ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Order Of Magnitude ◽  
Grid Points ◽  
One Year ◽  
The Antarctic

Abstract. We use two snow models, the IMAU Firn Densification Model (IMAU-FDM) and SNOWPACK, to model firn characteristics in the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). We force these models with mass and energy fluxes from the Regional Atmospheric Climate MOdel (RACMO2.3p2) to construct a 1979–2016 climatology of AP firn density, temperature and liquid water content. A comparison with 75 snow temperature observations at 10 m depth and with density from 11 firn cores, suggests that both snow models perform adequately. In this study, we focus on the detection of so-called perennial firn aquifers (PFAs), that are formed when surface meltwater percolates into the firnpack in summer, is then buried by snowfall, and does not refreeze during the following winter. In 941 model grid points, covering ~ 28,000 km2, PFAs existed for at least one year in the simulated period, most notably in the western AP. At these locations, surface meltwater production exceeds 150 to 300 mm w.e. yr−1, with accumulation at least an order of magnitude larger. Most pronounced and widespread are PFAs modelled on and around Wilkins ice shelf. Here, both meltwater production and accumulation rates are sufficiently high to cause PFA formation in most years in the 1979–2016 period, covering a large part of the ice shelf. Other notable PFA locations are Wordie ice shelf, an ice shelf that has almost completely disappeared in recent decades, and the relatively warm northwestern mountain ranges of Palmer Land, where accumulations rates can be extremely large and PFAs are formed frequently. We find that not only the magnitude of melt and accumulation is important, but also the timing. If large accumulation events occur in the months following an above average summer melt event, this favours PFA formation in that year. Finally, we find that most PFAs are predicted near the grounding lines of the (former) Prince Gustav, Wilkins and Wordie ice shelves. This highlights the need to further investigate how PFAs may impact ice shelf disintegration events, in a similar way as supraglacial lakes do.

scholarly journals Dual-satellite (Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8) remote sensing of supraglacial lakes in Greenland

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew G. Williamson ◽  
Alison F. Banwell ◽  
Ian C. Willis ◽  
Neil S. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
High Spatial Resolution ◽  
Greenland Ice Sheet ◽  
High Temporal Resolution ◽  
Landsat 8 ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
Dual Sensor ◽  
Sentinel 2

Abstract. Although remote sensing is commonly used to monitor supraglacial lakes on the Greenland Ice Sheet, most satellite records must trade-off high spatial resolution for high temporal resolution (e.g. MODIS) or vice versa (e.g. Landsat). Here, we overcome this issue by developing and applying a dual-sensor method that can monitor changes to lake areas and volumes at high spatial resolution (10–30 m) with a frequent revisit time (~ 3 days). We achieve this by mosaicking imagery from the Landsat 8 OLI with imagery from the recently launched Sentinel-2 MSI for a ~ 12 000 km2 area of West Greenland in summer 2016. First, we validate a physically based method for calculating lake depths with Sentinel-2 by comparing measurements against those derived from the available contemporaneous Landsat 8 imagery; we find close correspondence between the two sets of values (R2 = 0.841; RMSE = 0.555 m). This provides us with the methodological basis for automatically calculating lake areas, depths and volumes from all available Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images. These automatic methods are incorporated into an algorithm for Fully Automated Supraglacial lake Tracking at Enhanced Resolution (FASTER). The FASTER algorithm produces time series showing lake evolution during the 2016 melt season, including automated rapid (≤ 4 day) lake-drainage identification. With the dual Sentinel-2-Landsat 8 record, we identify 184 rapidly draining lakes, many more than identified with either imagery collection alone (93 with Sentinel-2; 66 with Landsat 8), due to their inferior temporal resolution, or would be possible with MODIS, due to its omission of small lakes 

scholarly journals Supraglacial lakes on the Larsen B ice shelf, Antarctica, and at Paakitsoq, West Greenland: a comparative study

2014 ◽  
Vol 55 (66) ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison F. Banwell ◽  
Martamaria Caballero ◽  
Neil S. Arnold ◽  
Neil F. Glasser ◽  
L. Mac Cathles ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Greenland Ice Sheet ◽  
Structural Features ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Drainage Basins ◽  
Ice Shelf ◽  
Ice Shelves ◽  
Supraglacial Lakes ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Different Levels

AbstractSupraglacial meltwater lakes trigger ice-shelf break-up and modulate seasonal ice-sheet flow, and are thus agents by which warming is transmitted to the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. To characterize supraglacial lake variability we perform a comparative analysis of lake geometry and depth in two distinct regions, one on the pre-collapse (2002) Larsen B ice shelf, Antarctica, and the other in the ablation zone of Paakitsoq, a land-terminating region of the Greenland ice sheet. Compared to Paakitsoq, lakes on the Larsen B ice shelf cover a greater proportion of surface area (5.3% cf. 1%), but are shallower and more uniform in area. Other aspects of lake geometry (e.g. eccentricity, degree of convexity (solidity) and orientation) are relatively similar between the two regions. We attribute the notable difference in lake density and depth between ice-shelf and grounded ice to the fact that ice shelves have flatter surfaces and less distinct drainage basins. Ice shelves also possess more stimuli to small-scale, localized surface elevation variability, due to the various structural features that yield small variations in thickness and which float at different levels by Archimedes’ principle.

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