Monitoring glacier retreat using time-series remote sensing imagery in Marian Cove, King George Island, Antarctica

Abstract

Antarctic Peninsula is known as the area experiencing prominent global warming than other places in Antarctica. An effective way to investigate environmental changes from warming is long-term monitoring using remote sensing technique. We chose Marian Cove, King George Island, Antarctica as a monitoring site located in Antarctic Peninsula. To investigate glacier retreat trend in the target area, multiple commercial and publicly available remote sensing datasets including aerial photography, mid-resolution, i.e., a spatial resolution of about 15 m, satellite imagery and high-resolution, i.e., a spatial resolution of about or less than 1 m, satellite imagery acquired in austral summer were collected from 1956 to 2017, over sixty years. The remote sensing datasets were carefully registered to compensate spatial displacement between datasets and then glacier terminus in each dataset was mapped. From the retreat velocity of the terminus lines, acceleration trend of glacier retreat in recent years was figured out, and this approach will be applied to other monitoring sites such as Potter Cove and Collins Harbor in the coast of King George Island in further study.