Seasonal Thickness Changes Revealed by Airborne Radar Interferometry, Pi-SAR2, at Two Glaciers Near Mt. Tsurugi, Japan

Abstract:

Based on ice radar and high-preicision GPS measurements, Fukui and Iida (2012) have reported the presence of "glaciers" near Mt. Tsurugi, central Japan, which had been previously regarded as perenial snowy gorges. While their discovery was brought out by the modern geodetic techniques, there used to be a wrong idea that the equilibrium line altitude in central Japanese Alps is about 4000 meter, causing the actual glaciers to be overlooked; the elevation of Mt Tsurugi is 2999 meter. The presence of glaciers in central Japan is due to the very high seasonal accmulation; the snow fall in the mountainous regions can reach several tens of meters or more. There are, however, few snow-depth measurement data due to the logistic problems. The equilibrium line altitude also remains uncertain.

We have performed airborne synthetic aperture radar (SAR) measurements near the two glaciers in August, October 2013, August 2014, and March 2015. The Pi-SAR2 system used in this study consists of X-band SAR antennas, and allows us to perform single-pass interferometry and full polarimetry with the maximum spatial resolution of 0.3 m. Taking advantage of the single-pass interferometry, we have generated digital elevation models (DEM) at each measurement epoch to derive the temporal changes in the thickness by differecing the DEMs of multiple epochs.

Snow melt season starts in May at the analyzed area, and the first snow fall usually occurs in late October. As such, the minimum thickness is expected in October, when the glacier ice appears on the surface. Preliminary analyses indicate that the differences between August and October 2013 reaches ~10 to 20 meters with errors of 5-10 meters.