Estimation of speed and surface temperature from optical satellite imagery at Viedma glacier, Argentina

LOVECCHIO ANDRÉS; LENZANO MARIA GABRIELA; MARCELO DURAND; ESTEBAN LANNUTTI; LUIS LENZANO; ROBERT BRUCE

Berlín

Conferencia; Conference ?Climate Impacts on Glaciers and Biosphere in Fuego-Patagonia?.; 2017

Humboldt-Universität.

The spatial, spectral and temporal performance of remote sensing data enables the accurate modeling of glacier physics and dynamics. The combination of different spectral bands at diverse wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum allows for simultaneously obtaining complementary data of diverse glacier characteristics. The Southern Patagonian Icefield is one of the largest freshwater reservoirs of the World and the glaciers therein have shown dissimilar behaviors. In order to better understand glacier dynamics, surface velocities and temperatures are considered to be good indicators. In this study, we calculate surface velocities and temperatures of Viedma glacier and analyze the correlation between both variables using Landsat 8 data for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Feature Tracking technique was utilized to retrieve glacier velocities, whereas temperatures were obtained by means of the single-channel method (NCEP). Velocities at the glacier terminus reached a maximum of 3 ±0.3md-1, while the thermal data revealed minimum values of -2 ±0.29°C in the uppermost section of the glacier and maxima of 2 ±0.29°C at the glacier snout. This work is the first that applied multispectral analyses in bared glaciers at the SPI and which provided knowledge from to the relationship between deformation velocities and ice surface temperature.