Master student presentation at the Nordic Branch Meeting of the International Glaciological Society

We’re happy to announce that on Saturday 6 November between 09:15-09:30 our master’s student Truls Thorsen Karlsen will present his Master’s thesis work at “The Nordic Branch Meeting of the International Glaciological Society 2021” 4-6 November 2021. 

Measuring velocities of a surge type glacier with SAR interferometry using ALOS-2 data

Summary: In recent years, in-situ measurements on Kongsvegen, a surge-type glacier located in the Kongsfjorden area, have showed an acceleration in the flow speeds of the glacier. This could indicate the onset of a surging event, which presents the opportunity to study the dynamics of a glacier surge using remote sensing techniques with in-situ data for reference. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is well suited for this, as it does not rely on the sun for illumination and is not obstructed by clouds. In addition, SAR can be used to measure displacement with high accuracy and resolution through the use of interferometric SAR (InSAR). Image pairs from 2018-2019 showed that the InSAR measurements were in good agreement with the in-situ data, as they also indicated an acceleration of the flow speeds on Kongsvegen. The offset tracking results on these pairs overestimated the velocity magnitudes, but also showed an increase in time. Overall, InSAR could be used to measure flow speeds on Kongsvegen successfully, but more data with a short temporal baseline is needed for an in-depth analysis. 

 More information can be found here.