Seasonal ice flow velocity variations of Polar Record Glacier, East Antarctica during 2016–2019 using Sentinel-1 data

Abstract

Remote sensing-based investigation of ice flow dynamics of Polar Record Glacier (PRG) during December–April of 2016–2019 has been conducted in this work. Using offset tracking method on the Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images, we estimated the glacier ice flow velocity. Ice flow velocity near the glacier terminus indicated higher velocity during January and subsequently showed lower values in December during 2016–2019. The maximum and minimum velocity of the glacier was found to be ∼2.54 and 0.03 m/d for 2016–2017, ∼2.49 and 0.03 m/d for 2017–2018, and ∼2.47 and 0.03 m/d for 2018–2019. Results indicate that the maximum velocity occurred at the terminus of the glacier and minimum flow was detected on the ice sheet portion of the glacier. The average ice front position receded from ∼900 m in 2016–2017 to ∼650 m in 2017–2018 to ∼200 m in 2018–2019. A slowdown near the glacier terminus is observed for the period 2018–2019, while the total glacier advancement was observed to be 28 km² from 877 km² to 905 km² during the period of 2016–2019. The enhanced velocity at the terminus in the early winter (March and April) was attributed to ice-free water surrounding the PRG terminus which eliminated the buttressing effect.

Keywords:

• Polar Record Glacier
• Sentinel-1 SAR data
• offset tracking
• flow velocity
• East Antarctica

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the Director, National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, for motivation. Sentinel-1 data were provided by the European Space Agency in the public domain. The high-resolution REMA DEM was provided by the University of Minnesota. We also thank USGS for providing Landsat-8 data in the public domain. This research is supported by National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Goa (NCPOR contribution no. J-131/2020-21).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

This work was funded by Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India.