Mapping Complete Three-Dimensional Ice Velocities by Integrating Multi-Baseline and Multi-Aperture InSAR Measurements: A Case Study of the Grove Mountains Area, East Antarctic

Abstract

The Antarctic is one of the most sensitive areas to climate change, and ice velocity is a fundamental parameter for quantitatively assessing the glacier mass balance. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR), a powerful tool for monitoring surface deformation with the advantages of having high precision and wide coverage, has been widely used in determining ice velocity in the Antarctic. However, the mapping of complete three-dimensional (3D) ice velocities is greatly limited by the imaging geometries and digital elevation model (DEM)-induced errors. In this study, we propose the integration of multibaseline and multiaperture InSAR measurements from the ENVISAT ASAR datasets to derive complete 3D ice velocities in the Grove Mountains area of the Antarctic. The results show that the estimated complete 3D ice velocities are in good agreement with MEaSUREs and GPS observations. Compared with the conventional 2D and quasi-3D ice velocities, the complete 3D ice velocities can effectively eliminate the effects of DEM errors and elevation changes and are also capable of retrieving the thickness change of the ice, which provides important information on the origin of mass transition.