Publication Date
2020
Journal or Book Title
Remote Sensing
Abstract
Melt and supraglacial lakes are precursors to ice shelf collapse and subsequent accelerated ice sheet mass loss. We used data from the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 satellites to develop a threshold-based method for detection of lakes found on the Antarctic ice shelves, calculate their depths and thus their volumes. To achieve this, we focus on four key areas: the Amery, Roi Baudouin, Nivlisen, and Riiser-Larsen ice shelves, which are all characterized by extensive surface meltwater features. To validate our products, we compare our results against those obtained by an independent method based on a supervised classification scheme (e.g., Random Forest algorithm). Additional verification is provided by manual inspection of results for nearly 1000 Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 images. Our dual-sensor approach will enable constructing high-resolution time series of lake volumes. Therefore, to ensure interoperability between the two datasets, we evaluate depths from contemporaneous Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 image pairs. Our assessments point to a high degree of correspondence, producing an average R2 value of 0.85, no bias, and an average RMSE of 0.2 m. We demonstrate our method’s ability to characterize lake evolution by presenting first evidence of drainage events outside of the Antarctic Peninsula on the Amery Ice shelf. The methods presented here pave the way to upscaling throughout the Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 observational record across Antarctica to produce a first-ever continental dataset of supraglacial lake volumes. Such a dataset will improve our understanding of the influence of surface hydrology on ice shelf stability, and thus, future projections of Antarctica’s contribution to sea level rise.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12010134
Volume
12
Special Issue
Environmental Remote Sensing
Issue
1
License
UMass Amherst Open Access Policy
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Moussavi, Mahsa; Pope, Allen; Halberstadt, Anna Ruth W.; Trusel, Luke D.; and Cioffi, Leanne, "Antarctic Supraglacial Lake Detection Using Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2 Imagery: Towards Continental Generation of Lake Volumes" (2020). Remote Sensing. 22.
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12010134