Evaluation of methods for deriving mountain glacier velocities with ALOS PALSAR images:A case study of Skyang glacier in central Karakoram
WANG Sisheng1,2,3, JIANG Liming1, SUN Yongling1,2, LIU Lin1,2, SUN Yafei1,2, WANG Hansheng1
1. State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics, Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430077, China;
2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China;
3. Xi'an Geotechnical Investigation and Surveying Mapping Institute, Xi'an 710054, China
Glacier surface velocity is one of the key parameters of glacier dynamics and mass balance. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image is an important data source to derive the glacier surface velocity. Now, methods for estimating glacier velocities mainly include Differential Interferometric techniques (D-InSAR), Multiple Aperture InSAR (MAI) and offset tracking. Among them, MAI is a new InSAR technology to overcome the drawback of D-InSAR which is not sensitive to radar azimuth (along-track) deformation. In this study, two ALOS PALSAR L band images which acquired 46 days apart were selected to derive glacier surface velocities of Skyang glacier in the central Karakoram based on the above three methods. In addition, the applications and limitations of the three methods in detecting glacier surface velocities are discussed. The results show that D-InSAR and MAI methods accurately detect displacements in range and azimuth direction respectively, but they all require high coherence. However, in areas of low coherence, offset tracking method achieves more reliable results; moreover, it can obtain two-dimensional glacier velocity field in both range and azimuth direction. Nevertheless, it is limited in the areas which lack feature points.
王思胜, 江利明, 孙永玲, 柳林, 孙亚飞, 汪汉胜. 基于ALOS PALSAR数据的山地冰川流速估算方法比较——以喀喇昆仑地区斯克洋坎力冰川为例[J]. 国土资源遥感, 2016, 28(2): 54-61.
WANG Sisheng, JIANG Liming, SUN Yongling, LIU Lin, SUN Yafei, WANG Hansheng. Evaluation of methods for deriving mountain glacier velocities with ALOS PALSAR images:A case study of Skyang glacier in central Karakoram. REMOTE SENSING FOR LAND & RESOURCES, 2016, 28(2): 54-61.
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2016, Vol. 28 
