Remote sensing of cryospheric changes
Contact person: Andreas K??b
Keywords: satellites, remote sensing, cryosphere, time-series
Research group: Geography and Hydrology (GeoHyd)
Department of Geosciences
Earth’s cryosphere is shrinking at a rapid pace (https://www.ipcc.ch/srocc/). Glaciers are retreating, low-land and mountain permafrost are thawing, and snow regimes are changing. Quantification of these environmental changes is urgently required to understand the spatio-temporal patterns of climate change impacts and their underlying processes. As we are entering a “golden age” of space-borne Earth observation, satellite remote sensing offers an increasing wealth of unique opportunities to monitor and assess cryospheric changes on regional to global scales. The challenge is to develop new methods to exploit and understand the huge archives of heterogeneous satellite data currently built up, and to assimilate them into earth system models, digital twins, and physics-based process models. We push such work in close collaboration with, among others, the European Space Agency (ESA) and space industry. Research proposals may span several methodological approaches within this scope, as well as a number of application domains.
Methodological research topics:
- Optical satellite data, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), satellite laser and radar altimetry
- Upcoming satellite missions such as ESA EarthExplorers and NASA Earth-observation missions
- Advanced time series analysis of optical and SAR data
- Development of satellite radar interferometric time series of ground motion, and their assimilation into process models
- Digital twins Earth
- Coupling of remotely sensed data with numerical models for glacier mass balance or dynamics, permafrost and/or snow cover
- Coupling of remotely sensed data with climate and Earth-system modelling
- Bayesian statistics, data assimilation methods
Topics from natural sciences or technology:
- Land cryosphere
- Glacier mass balance and glacier flow/dynamics
- Glacier flow instabilities/surges
- Mountain permafrost distribution and creep
- Low-land permafrost, thaw subsidence, frost heave
- Environmental impacts on low-land permafrost from e.g. climate change or forest fires
- Snow cover, snow thickness, snow water equivalent and their spatio-temporal changes
Mentoring and internship will be offered by a relevant external partner.
