Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s

Abstract The reconnaissance ARGON satellites collected the earliest images of Antarctica from space dating back to the 1960s, providing valuable historical baseline information for studying polar ice sheets. Those photographs are underutilized for ice motion mapping, due to lack of sufficient ground...

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Main Authors: Shujie Wang, Hongxing Liu, Bailang Yu, Guoqing Zhou, Xiao Cheng
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2016-06-01
Series:Geophysical Research Letters
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068990
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author Shujie Wang
Hongxing Liu
Bailang Yu
Guoqing Zhou
Xiao Cheng
author_facet Shujie Wang
Hongxing Liu
Bailang Yu
Guoqing Zhou
Xiao Cheng
author_sort Shujie Wang
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The reconnaissance ARGON satellites collected the earliest images of Antarctica from space dating back to the 1960s, providing valuable historical baseline information for studying polar ice sheets. Those photographs are underutilized for ice motion mapping, due to lack of sufficient ground controls for image orthorectification. In this study, we orthorectified the ARGON photographs by fully exploiting the metric qualities of WorldView satellite images: very high spatial resolution and precise geolocation. Through a case study over Larsen Ice Shelf, we demonstrated that the camera model with bundle block adjustment can achieve geolocation accuracy of better than the nominal resolution (140 m) for orthorectifying ARGON images, with WorldView imagery as ground control source. This allowed us to extend the ice velocity records of Larsen Ice Shelf back into 1960s~1970s for the first time. The retrospective analysis revealed that acceleration of the collapsed Larsen B occurred much earlier than previously thought.
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institution OA Journals
issn 0094-8276
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publishDate 2016-06-01
publisher Wiley
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series Geophysical Research Letters
spelling doaj-art-e87ab251ce4d4cc8822e029ad6867def2025-08-20T02:31:41ZengWileyGeophysical Research Letters0094-82761944-80072016-06-0143115758576710.1002/2016GL068990Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960sShujie Wang0Hongxing Liu1Bailang Yu2Guoqing Zhou3Xiao Cheng4Department of Geography University of Cincinnati Cincinnati Ohio USADepartment of Geography University of Cincinnati Cincinnati Ohio USAKey Laboratory of Geographic Information Science, Ministry of Education East China Normal University Shanghai ChinaGuangxi Key Laboratory for Geospatial Informatics and Geomatics Engineering Guilin University of Technology Guilin ChinaState Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, College of Global Change and Earth System Science Beijing Normal University Beijing ChinaAbstract The reconnaissance ARGON satellites collected the earliest images of Antarctica from space dating back to the 1960s, providing valuable historical baseline information for studying polar ice sheets. Those photographs are underutilized for ice motion mapping, due to lack of sufficient ground controls for image orthorectification. In this study, we orthorectified the ARGON photographs by fully exploiting the metric qualities of WorldView satellite images: very high spatial resolution and precise geolocation. Through a case study over Larsen Ice Shelf, we demonstrated that the camera model with bundle block adjustment can achieve geolocation accuracy of better than the nominal resolution (140 m) for orthorectifying ARGON images, with WorldView imagery as ground control source. This allowed us to extend the ice velocity records of Larsen Ice Shelf back into 1960s~1970s for the first time. The retrospective analysis revealed that acceleration of the collapsed Larsen B occurred much earlier than previously thought.https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068990ice velocity mappingDeclassified Intelligence Satellite PhotographyARGONLarsen Ice Shelf
spellingShingle Shujie Wang
Hongxing Liu
Bailang Yu
Guoqing Zhou
Xiao Cheng
Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
Geophysical Research Letters
ice velocity mapping
Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photography
ARGON
Larsen Ice Shelf
title Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
title_full Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
title_fullStr Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
title_full_unstemmed Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
title_short Revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photographs back to 1960s
title_sort revealing the early ice flow patterns with historical declassified intelligence satellite photographs back to 1960s
topic ice velocity mapping
Declassified Intelligence Satellite Photography
ARGON
Larsen Ice Shelf
url https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL068990
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AT guoqingzhou revealingtheearlyiceflowpatternswithhistoricaldeclassifiedintelligencesatellitephotographsbackto1960s
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