Observing glacier dynamics with low-cost, multi-GNSS positioning in Victoria Land, Antarctica

Abstract

This study examines the performance of low-cost, low-power GNSS positioning systems for glacier monitoring in high-latitude environments. We compare the positioning performance of co-located low-cost u-blox ZED-F9P GNSS units (a few hundred USDs) and survey-grade Trimble R10 units (> $10,000 USD) under stationary (on land) and dynamic (on glacier) conditions near Terra Nova Bay, Antarctica. Low-cost and survey-grade systems yield almost identical error magnitudes under short (3 m), medium (34 km) and long (390 km) baseline kinematic-positioning scenarios. We further examined the efficacy of low-cost GNSS for glaciological applications by installing four u-blox and two Trimble receivers on Priestley Glacier to observe tide-modulated ice flexure. All receivers successfully detected subtle tidal oscillations with amplitudes < 3 cm, consistent with the predicted phasing from a tide model. These experiments offer a strong rationale for the widespread use of low-cost receivers to expand and densify GNSS monitoring networks, both in Antarctica and in glaciated regions worldwide.

Seamless Precise Kinematic Positioning in the High-Latitude Environments: Case Study in the Antarctic Region

“…The continent of Antarctica, the coldest, emptiest, and windiest place on Earth, has drawn intense attention from a wide variety of researchers and explorers over the past few decades. There are nearly a hundred science bases in Antarctica that host thousands of researchers from tens of countries to carry out many different areas of research, including glacier monitoring, climate change, global warming, marine, tectonics and seismology, geodesy, environment, mapping habitats, seafloor mapping, biology, medicine, space, creating digital twin, and so on in the difficult geographical and atmospheric conditions of Antarctica (Oppenheimer, 1998;Bevis et al, 2009;Rückamp et al, 2011;Ji et al, 2014;Smith et al, 2015;Baranov et al, 2018;Jansen et al, 2018;Minowa et al, 2019;Still et al, 2023). In all these studies, accurate, reliable, and robust 3D geodetic position-ing turns into a very challenging job for both surveyors and equipment due to the nature of this challenging geography, i.e.…”