With dense SAR satellite data time series it is possible to map surface and subsurface glacier properties that vary in time. On Sentinel-1A and RADARSAT-2 backscatter time series images over mainland Norway and Svalbard, ...

In north-western Tibet (34.0∘ N, 82.2∘ E) near lake Aru Co, the entire ablation areas of two glaciers (Aru-1 and Aru-2) suddenly collapsed on 17 July and 21 September 2016. The masses transformed into ice avalanches with ...

In permafrost areas, seasonal freeze-thaw cycles result in upward and downward movements of the ground. For some permafrost areas, long-term downward movements were reported during the last decade. We measured seasonal and ...

Four large drainages from glacial lakes occurred during 2006–2014 in the western Teskey Range, Kyrgyzstan. These floods caused extensive damage, killing people and livestock as well as destroying property and crops. Using ...

Abstract. Glacier surface mass balance observations in the Tien Shan and Pamir are relatively sparse and often discontinuous. Nevertheless, glaciers are one of the most important components of the high-mountain cryosphere ...

To assess the current state of glacial lakes, we examine the seasonal lake-area changes of 339 glacial lakes in the Teskey and Kungoy Ranges of the Issyk-Kul Basin, Kyrgyzstan, during 2013–2016 based on optical satellite ...

Surges and glacier avalanches are expressions of glacier instability, and among the most dramatic phenomena in the mountain cryosphere. Until now, the catastrophic collapse of a glacier, combining the large volume of surges ...

Stretching time series further in the past with the best possible accuracy is essential to the understanding of climate change impacts and geomorphological processes evolving on decadal-scale time spans. In the first half ...

Satellite measurements of coseismic displacements are typically based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry or amplitude tracking, or based on optical data such as from Landsat, Sentinel-2, SPOT, ASTER, very ...

Direct snow depth measurements are sparse, especially in remote areas. In this study, we assess the potential of ICESat laser altimetry for providing snow depths for its operational period 2003–2009 on the example of the ...

High Mountain Asia hosts the largest glacier concentration outside the polar regions. These glaciers are important contributors to streamflow in one of the most populated areas of the world. Past studies have used methods ...

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) system on board the Terra (EOS AM-1) satellite has been a source of stereoscopic images covering the whole globe at 15-m resolution with consistent ...

We computed circum-Arctic surface velocity maps of glaciers and ice caps over the Canadian Arctic, Svalbard and the Russian Arctic for at least two times between the 1990s and 2017 using satellite SAR data. Our analyses ...

The Karakoram mountain range is well known for its numerous surge-type glaciers of which several have recently surged or are still doing so. Analysis of multi-temporal satellite images and digital elevation models have ...

In consideration of the strong atmospheric warming that has been observed since the 1990s in polar regions there is a need to quantify mass loss of Arctic ice caps and glaciers and their contribution to sea level rise. In ...

Optical satellite products are available at different processing levels. Of these products, terrain corrected (i.e., orthorectified) products are the ones mostly used for glacier displacement estimation. For terrain ...

Contemporary optical remote sensing satellites or constellations of satellites can acquire imagery at sub-weekly or even daily timescales. These systems have the potential to facilitate intra-seasonal, short-term surface ...

When Earth observation satellite systems are designed, one typically prefers a sun-synchronous orbit. However, the first generations of cubesats from Planet were deployed out of the International Space Station (ISS) and ...

Acquiring data to analyse change in topography is often a costly endeavour requiring either extensive, potentially risky, fieldwork and/or expensive equipment or commercial data. Bringing the cost down while keeping the ...

Glacier dynamics play an important role in the mass balance of many glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets. In this study we exploit Radarsat-2 (RS-2) Wide Fine (WF) data to determine the surface speed of Svalbard glaciers in ...

Mapping of glacier extents from automated classification of optical satellite images has become a major application of the freely available images from Landsat. A widely applied method is based on segmented ratio images ...

Using sparsely glaciated southern Norway as a case study, we assess the potential and limitations of ICESat laser altimetry for analysing regional glacier elevation change in rough mountain terrain. Differences between ...

The first of two Sentinel-2 satellites, launched mid-2015, has similar characteristics as the Landsat TM/ETM+/OLI satellites. Together, these satellites will produce a tremendous quantity of optical images worldwide for ...

With its temporal resolution of 10 days (five days with two satellites, and significantly more at high latitudes), its swath width of 290 km, and its 10 m and 20 m spatial resolution bands from the visible to the shortwave ...

This study presents a reconstruction of the seasonal mass balance of Glacier No. 354, located in the Akshiirak range, Kyrgyzstan, from 2003 to 2014. We use a distributed accumulation and temperature-index melt model driven ...

Mass loss from glaciers and ice sheets currently accounts for two-thirds of the observed global sea-level rise and has accelerated since the 1990s, coincident with strong atmospheric warming in the polar regions. Here we ...

Kronebreen and Kongsbreen are among the fastest-flowing glaciers on Svalbard and, therefore, important contributors to the total dynamic mass loss from the archipelago. Here, we present a time series of area-wide surface ...

Sorted soil circles are a form of periglacial patterned ground that is commonly noted for its striking geometric regularity. They consist of an inner fine domain bordered by gravel rings that rise some decimetres above the ...

Knowledge of water-surface velocities in rivers is useful for understanding a range of river processes. In cold regions, river-ice break up and the related downstream transport of ice debris is often the most important ...

We present a multi-temporal digital inventory of Svalbard glaciers with the most recent from the late 2000s containing 33 775 km2 of glaciers covering 57% of the total land area of the archipelago. At present, 68% of the ...