The Sentinel-1 Mission: New Opportunities for Ice Sheet Observations

The Sentinel satellite constellation series, developed by the European Space Agency, represents the dedicated space component of the European Copernicus program, committed to long-term operational services in a wide range of application domains. Here, we address the potential of the Sentinel-1 missi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2015-07, Vol.7 (7), p.9371-9389
Main Authors: Nagler, Thomas, Rott, Helmut, Hetzenecker, Markus, Wuite, Jan, Potin, Pierre
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate
Climate change
European Space Agency
Glaciers
Greenland
Ice
ice motion
Ice sheets
Missions
Monitoring
Orbits
Remote sensing
SAR
Sentinel-1
Surface velocity
Synthetic aperture radar
Tracking
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Summary:The Sentinel satellite constellation series, developed by the European Space Agency, represents the dedicated space component of the European Copernicus program, committed to long-term operational services in a wide range of application domains. Here, we address the potential of the Sentinel-1 mission for mapping and monitoring the surface velocity of glaciers and ice sheets. We present an ice velocity map of Greenland, derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data acquired in winter 2015 by Sentinel-1A, the first satellite of the Copernicus program in orbit. The map is assembled from about 900 SAR scenes acquired in Interferometric Wide swath (IW) mode, applying the offset tracking technique. We discuss special features of IW mode data, describe the procedures for producing ice velocity maps, and assess the uncertainty of the ice motion product. We compare the Sentinel-1 ice motion product with velocity maps derived from high resolution SAR data of the TerraSAR-X mission and from PALSAR data. Beyond supporting operational services, the Sentinel-1 mission offers enhanced capabilities for comprehensive and long-term observation of key climate variables, such as the motion of ice masses.
ISSN:2072-4292
2072-4292
DOI:10.3390/rs70709371