Remote sensing of recent glacier changes in the Canadian Arctic

Sharp, Martin; Burgess, David; Cawkwell, Fiona; Copland, Luke; Davis, James A.; Dowdeswell, E. K.; Dowdeswell, Julian A.; Gardner, Alex; Mair, D.; Wang, Libo; Williamson, Scott; Wolken, G. J.; Wyatt, Faye

doi:10.1007/978-3-540-79818-7_9

Cited by 32 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Sharp et al (2014) reported rates of areal change for TNIC of up to −0.66 km 2 a −1 (197 to 169 km 2 ) between 1958 and 2000, while our own results give a nearly identical figure of −0.59 ± 0.03 km 2 a −1 (196.2 ± 9.9 km 2 to 173.2 ± 8.5 km 2 ) over this similar period. For GRIC, however, the shrinkage rate of −0.36 km 2 a −1 (135 to 120 km 2 ) reported by Sharp et al (2014) over the period 1958-2000 is nearly 4 times more negative than our own figure of −0.10 ± 0.01 km 2 a −1 for 1952-1999 (131.8 ± 6.6 km 2 to 126.9 ± 6.3 km 2 ). Way (2015) recently reported that between 1973-1975 and 2010-2013, the area of TNIC decreased by 22 % (199.1 km 2 to 154.8 ± 7.5 km 2 ), while that of GRIC reduced by 18 % (134.3 km 2 to 110 ± 0.9 km 2 ).…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 57%

Area, elevation and mass changes of the two southernmost ice caps of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between 1952 and 2014

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Grinnell and Terra Nivea Ice Caps are located on the southern Baffin Island, Nunavut, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. These relatively small ice caps have received little attention compared to the much larger ice masses further north. Their evolution can, however, give valuable information about the impact of the recent Arctic warming at lower latitudes (i.e. ~ 62.5° N). In this paper, we measure or estimate historical and recent changes of area, elevation and mass of both ice caps using in situ, airborne and spaceborne data sets, including imagery from the Pléiades satellites. The area of Terra Nivea Ice Cap has decreased by 34 % since the late 1950s, while that of Grinnell Ice Cap has decreased by 20 % since 1952. For both ice caps, the areal reduction accelerated at the beginning of the 21st century. The estimated glacier-wide mass balance was −0.37 ± 0.21 m a−1 water equivalent (w.e.) over Grinnell Ice Cap for the 1952–2014 period, and −0.47 ± 0.16 m a−1 w.e. over Terra Nivea Ice Cap for the 1958/59–2014 period. Terra Nivea Ice Cap has experienced an accelerated rate of mass loss of −1.77 ± 0.36 m a−1 w.e. between 2007 and 2014. This rate is 5.9 times as negative when compared to the 1958/59–2007 period (−0.30 ± 0.19 m a−1 w.e.) and 2 times as negative when compared to the mass balance of other glaciers in the southern parts of Baffin Island over the 2003–2009 period. A similar acceleration in mass loss is suspected for the Grinnell Ice Cap, given the calculated elevation changes and the proximity to Terra Nivea Ice Cap. The recent increase in mass loss rates for these two ice caps is linked to a strong near-surface regional warming and a lengthening of the melt season into the autumn that may be indirectly strengthened by a later freezing of sea ice in the Hudson Strait sector. On a methodological level, our study illustrates the strong potential of Pléiades satellite data to unlock the under-exploited archive of old aerial photographs.

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Section: Comparison To Other Studiessupporting

confidence: 57%

Area, elevation and mass changes of the two southernmost ice caps of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between 1952 and 2014

et al. 2015

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“…This is in turn consistent with the broader pattern of reductions in mass and area of Arctic glaciers and ice caps (Dowdeswell et al, 1997;Dyurgerov and Meier, 1997;Arendt et al, 2002;Koerner, 2005;Sharp et al, , 2014Fisher et al, 2012;Mortimer et al, 2016). It is also consistent with a negative mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet since at least the 1990s (Shepherd et al, 2012).…”

Section: Previous Worksupporting

confidence: 72%

“…It is also consistent with a negative mass balance of the Greenland Ice Sheet since at least the 1990s (Shepherd et al, 2012). Sharp et al (2014) show that while the larger ice bodies in the Canadian Arctic have seen the largest losses in mass, the smaller masses have lost a larger proportion on their areas. This is also consistent with the behavior of the Hazen Plateau ice caps.…”

Section: Previous Worksupporting

confidence: 61%

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Rapid wastage of the Hazen Plateau ice caps, northeastern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada

et al. 2017

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Abstract. Two pairs of small stagnant ice bodies on the Hazen Plateau of northeastern Ellesmere Island, the St. Patrick Bay ice caps and the Murray and Simmons ice caps, are rapidly shrinking, and the remnants of the St. Patrick Bay ice caps are likely to disappear entirely within the next 5 years. Vertical aerial photographs of these Little Ice Age relics taken during August of 1959 show that the larger of the St. Patrick Bay ice caps had an area of 7.48 km 2 and the smaller one 2.93 km 2 ; the Murray and Simmons ice caps covered 4.37 and 7.45 km 2 respectively. Outlines determined from ASTER satellite data for July 2016 show that, compared to 1959, the larger and the smaller of the St. Patrick Bay ice caps had both been reduced to only 5 % of their former area, with the Murray and Simmons ice caps faring better at 39 and 25 %, likely reflecting their higher elevation. Consistent with findings from other glaciological studies in the Queen Elizabeth Islands, ASTER imagery in conjunction with past GPS surveys documents a strikingly rapid wastage of the St. Patrick Bay ice caps over the last 15 years. These two ice caps shrank noticeably even between 2014 and 2015, apparently in direct response to the especially warm summer of 2015 over northeastern Ellesmere Island. The welldocumented recession patterns of the Hazen Plateau ice caps over the last 55+ years offer an opportunity to examine the processes of plant recolonization of polar landscapes.

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“…Ellesmere is part of the Northern Canadian Arctic Archipelago (NCAA) whose glacierized area in 2000 was around 104,000 km 2 [30] and contains one-third of the global volume of land ice outside Greenland and Antarctica [31]. The climate characteristics of this location are low amounts of precipitation during the winter time (300-600 mm year −1 ) and increasing surface temperatures linked with a shift to a dominantly easterly positioned July vortex associated with an increased frequency of tropospheric ridging over the Canadian High Arctic [32,33].…”

Section: Study Area and Data Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Glacier Surface Velocity Retrieval Using D-InSAR and Offset Tracking Techniques Applied to Ascending and Descending Passes of Sentinel-1 Data for Southern Ellesmere Ice Caps, Canadian Arctic

Sánchez-Gámez

Navarro

2017

Remote Sensing

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Abstract:The Terrain Observation by Progressive Scans (TOPS) acquisition mode of the Sentinel-1 mission provides a wide coverage per acquisition with resolutions of 5 m in range and 20 m in azimuth, which makes this acquisition mode attractive for glacier velocity monitoring. Here, we retrieve surface velocities from the southern Ellesmere Island ice caps (Canadian Arctic) using both offset tracking and Differential Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (D-InSAR) techniques and combining ascending and descending passes. We optimise the offset tracking technique by omitting the azimuth offsets. By doing so, we are able to improve the final resolution of the velocity product, as Sentinel-1 shows a lower resolution in the azimuth direction. Simultaneously, we avoid the undesired ionospheric effect manifested in the data as azimuth streaks. The D-InSAR technique shows its merits when applied to slow-moving areas, while offset tracking is more suitable for fast-moving areas. This research shows that the methods used here are complementary and the use of both to determine glacier velocities is better than only using one or the other. We observe glacier surface velocities of up to 1200 m year −1 for the fastest tidewater glaciers. The land-terminating glaciers show typical velocities between 12 and 33 m year −1 , though with peaks up to 150 m year −1 in narrowing zones of the confining valleys.

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Remote sensing of recent glacier changes in the Canadian Arctic

Cited by 32 publications

References 82 publications

Area, elevation and mass changes of the two southernmost ice caps of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between 1952 and 2014

Area, elevation and mass changes of the two southernmost ice caps of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago between 1952 and 2014

Rapid wastage of the Hazen Plateau ice caps, northeastern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada

Glacier Surface Velocity Retrieval Using D-InSAR and Offset Tracking Techniques Applied to Ascending and Descending Passes of Sentinel-1 Data for Southern Ellesmere Ice Caps, Canadian Arctic

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