Assessing Land Ice Height Decrease of the Fleming Glacier using ICESat-2 Satellite Data: A 2019-2022 Analysis

The following report investigates the land ice height decrease of the Fleming Glacier between 2019 and 2022 using ICESat-2 satellite data. This glacier is located on the Antarctic Peninsula, an area that has been severely impacted by global warming. Using data from the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) on board ICESat-2, more...

Mass balance of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets from 1992 to 2020

Ice losses from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have accelerated since the 1990s, accounting for a significant increase in the global mean sea level. Here, we present a new 29-year record of ice sheet mass balance from 1992 to 2020 from the Ice Sheet Mass Balance Inter-comparison Exercise (IMBIE). We compare and combine 50 independent...

A high-resolution record of surface melt on Antarctic ice shelves using multi-source remote sensing data and deep learning

While the influence of surface melt on Antarctic ice shelf stability can be large, the duration and affected area of melt events are often small. Therefore, melt events are difficult to capture with remote sensing, as satellite sensors always face the trade-off between spatial and temporal resolution. To overcome this limitation, we developed...

Remote Sensing of Surface Melt on Antarctica: Opportunities and Challenges

Surface melt is an important driver of ice shelf disintegration and its consequent mass loss over the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Monitoring surface melt using satellite remote sensing can enhance our understanding of ice shelf stability. However, the sensors do not measure the actual physical process of surface melt, but rather observe the presence...

Towards an Antarctic meteorite hotspot map

Meteorites contain information on the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Antarctica is the most productive region for collecting meteorites, as the visually contrasting meteorites are easily detectable and tend to concentrate at specific areas exposing blue ice. Blue ice areas act as meteorite stranding surfaces (MSSs) if the flow of...

Damage accelerates ice shelf instability and mass loss in Amundsen Sea Embayment

Pine Island Glacier and Thwaites Glacier in the Amundsen Sea Embayment are among the fastest changing outlet glaciers in West Antarctica with large consequences for global sea level. Yet, assessing how much and how fast both glaciers will weaken if these changes continue remains a major uncertainty as many of the processes that control their...

Importance of Blowing Snow During Cloudy Conditions in East Antarctica: Comparison of Ground-Based and Space-Borne Retrievals Over Ice-Shelf and Mountain Regions

Continuous measurements of blowing snow are scarce, both in time and space. Satellites now provide the opportunity to derive blowing snow occurrences, transport and sublimation rates over Antarctica. These products are extremely valuable and offer a continental-wide assessment of blowing snow, which is an important but unknown component of...

Detection of subsurface meltwater in East Antarctica using SAR Interferometry

Climate change has been a heated topic in recent years, and the mass loss of ice sheets is one aspect of it. The Antarctic Ice Sheet has experienced certain mass loss in the form of ice-shelf collapse and (sub-)surface melting, but thorough study remains limited due to the remote location of the continent. Therefore, remote sensing is expected...