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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The mountainous and ice-free terrains of the maritime
Antarctic generate complex mosaics of snow patches,
ranging from tens to hundreds of metres. These can only be
accurately mapped using high-resolution remote sensing. In
this paper we evaluate the application of radar scenes from
TerraSAR-X in High Resolution SpotLight mode for mapping
snow patches at a test area on Fildes Peninsula (King
George Island, South Shetlands). Snow-patch mapping and
characterization of snow stratigraphy were conducted at the
time of image acquisition on 12 and 13 January 2012. Snow
was wet in all studied snow patches, with coarse-grain and
rounded crystals showing advanced melting and with frequent
ice layers in the snow pack. Two TerraSAR-X scenes
in HH and VV polarization modes were analysed, with the
former showing the best results when discriminating between
wet snow, lake water and bare soil. However, significant
overlap in the backscattering signal was found. Average
wet-snow backscattering was −18.0 dB in HH mode, with
water showing −21.1 dB and bare soil showing −11.9 dB.
Single-band pixel-based and object-oriented image classification
methods were used to assess the classification potential
of TerraSAR-X SpotLight imagery. The best results
were obtained with an object-oriented approach using a watershed
segmentation with a support vector machine (SVM)
classifier, with an overall accuracy of 92 % and Kappa of
0.88. The main limitation was the west to north-west facing
snow patches, which showed significant error, an issue
related to artefacts from the geometry of satellite imagery
acquisition. The results show that TerraSAR-X in SpotLight mode provides high-quality imagery for mapping wet snow
and snowmelt in the maritime Antarctic. The classification
procedure that we propose is a simple method and a first step
to an implementation in operational mode if a good digital
elevation model is available.
Description
Keywords
single-band snow-patch mapping remote sensing maritime Antarctic
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Mora, C., Jiménez, J. J., Pina, P., Catalão, J., & Vieira, G. (2017). Evaluation of single-band snow-patch mapping using high-resolution microwave remote sensing: an application in the maritime Antarctic The Cryosphere, 11(1), 139-155, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-11-139-2017.
Publisher
Copernicus Publications