Brief communication: Mapping Greenland's perennial firn aquifers using enhanced-resolution L-band brightness temperature image time series

Details

• Journal Title:
  The Cryosphere
• Personal Author:
  Miller, Julie Z. ; Long, David G. ; Jezek, Kenneth C. ; Johnson, Joel T. ; Brodzik, Mary J. ; Shuman, Christopher A. ; Koenig, Lora S. ; Scambos, Ted A.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  CIRES (Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences)
• Description:
  Enhanced-resolution L-band brightness temperature (TB) image time series generated from observations collected over the Greenland Ice Sheet by NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite are used to map Greenland's perennial firn aquifers from space. Exponentially decreasing L-band TB signatures are correlated with perennial firn aquifer areas identified via the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) Multi-Channel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (MCoRDS) that was flown by NASA's Operation IceBridge (OIB) campaign. An empirical algorithm to map extent is developed by fitting these signatures to a set of sigmoidal curves. During the spring of 2016, perennial firn aquifer areas are found to extend over ∼66 000 km2.
• Keywords:
  Aquifers Remote Sensing Remote Sensing
• Source:
  The Cryosphere, 14(9), 2809-2817
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2809-2020
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  Greenland
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:92d658404c9827499b4ab078be4862ba7d167a28404af11a42e1527324e5e213
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/51599/noaa_51599_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 4.86 MB ]