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Continent‐Wide, Interferometric SAR Phase, Mapping of Antarctic Ice Velocity
Author(s) -
Mouginot J.,
Rignot E.,
Scheuchl B.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2019gl083826
Subject(s) - geology , ice sheet , ice stream , glaciology , sea ice , geodesy , interferometry , sea ice concentration , sea ice thickness , glacier , remote sensing , interferometric synthetic aperture radar , cryosphere , synthetic aperture radar , climatology , geomorphology , physics , optics , stratigraphy , tectonics , paleontology
Surface ice velocity is a fundamental characteristic of glaciers and ice sheets that quantifies the transport of ice. Changes in ice dynamics have a major impact on ice sheet mass balance and its contribution to sea level rise. Prior comprehensive mappings employed speckle and feature tracking techniques, optimized for fast‐flow areas, with precision of 2‐5 m/year, hence limiting our ability to describe ice flow in the slow interior. We present a vector map of ice velocity using the interferometric phase from multiple satellite synthetic aperture radars resulting in 10 times higher precision in speed (20 cm/year) and direction (5°) over 80% of Antarctica. Precision mapping over areas of slow motion (<1 m/year) improves from 20 to 93%, which helps better constrain drainage boundaries, improve mass balance assessment, evaluate regional atmospheric climate models, reconstruct ice thickness, and inform ice sheet numerical models.