TY - JOUR
T1 - Intercomparison and Validation of SAR-Based Ice Velocity Measurement Techniques within the Greenland Ice Sheet CCI Project
AU - Boncori, John Peter Merryman
AU - Andersen, Morten Langer
AU - Dall, Jørgen
AU - Kusk, Anders
AU - Kamstra, Martijn
AU - Andersen, Signe Bech
AU - Bechor, Noa
AU - Bevan, Suzanne
AU - Bignami, Christian
AU - Gourmelen, Noel
AU - Joughin, Ian
AU - Jung, Hyung-Sup
AU - Luckman, Adrian
AU - Mouginot, Jeremie
AU - Neelmeijer, Julia
AU - Rignot, Eric
AU - Scharrer, Kilian
AU - Nagler, Thomas
AU - Scheuchl, Bernd
AU - Strozzi, Tazio
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 by the authors.
PY - 2018/6/1
Y1 - 2018/6/1
N2 - Ice velocity is one of the products associated with the Ice Sheets Essential Climate Variable. This paper describes the intercomparison and validation of ice-velocity measurements carried out by several international research groups within the European Space Agency Greenland Ice Sheet Climate Change Initiative project, based on space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The goal of this activity was to survey the best SAR-based measurement and error characterization approaches currently in practice. To this end, four experiments were carried out, related to different processing techniques and scenarios, namely differential SAR interferometry, multi aperture SAR interferometry and offset-tracking of incoherent as well as of partially-coherent data. For each task, participants were provided with common datasets covering areas located on the Greenland ice-sheet margin and asked to provide mean velocity maps, quality characterization and a description of processing algorithms and parameters. The results were then intercompared and validated against GPS data, revealing in several cases significant differences in terms of coverage and accuracy. The algorithmic steps and parameters influencing the coverage, accuracy and spatial resolution of the measurements are discussed in detail for each technique, as well as the consistency between quality parameters and validation results. This allows several recommendations to be formulated, in particular concerning procedures which can reduce the impact of analyst decisions, and which are often found to be the cause of sub-optimal algorithm performance.
AB - Ice velocity is one of the products associated with the Ice Sheets Essential Climate Variable. This paper describes the intercomparison and validation of ice-velocity measurements carried out by several international research groups within the European Space Agency Greenland Ice Sheet Climate Change Initiative project, based on space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. The goal of this activity was to survey the best SAR-based measurement and error characterization approaches currently in practice. To this end, four experiments were carried out, related to different processing techniques and scenarios, namely differential SAR interferometry, multi aperture SAR interferometry and offset-tracking of incoherent as well as of partially-coherent data. For each task, participants were provided with common datasets covering areas located on the Greenland ice-sheet margin and asked to provide mean velocity maps, quality characterization and a description of processing algorithms and parameters. The results were then intercompared and validated against GPS data, revealing in several cases significant differences in terms of coverage and accuracy. The algorithmic steps and parameters influencing the coverage, accuracy and spatial resolution of the measurements are discussed in detail for each technique, as well as the consistency between quality parameters and validation results. This allows several recommendations to be formulated, in particular concerning procedures which can reduce the impact of analyst decisions, and which are often found to be the cause of sub-optimal algorithm performance.
KW - Climate Change Initiative
KW - Greenland ice sheet
KW - Ice velocity
KW - Synthetic Aperture Radar
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85048953457&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/rs10060929
DO - 10.3390/rs10060929
M3 - Article
SN - 2072-4292
VL - 10
JO - Remote Sensing
JF - Remote Sensing
IS - 6
M1 - 929
ER -