ABSTRACT

This chapter presents the most typical glacier parameters monitored using remote sensing data as described in this book. It provides a bridge between the glacier characteristics presented in Chapters 2 and 5 and the use of various remote sensing data types presented later in the book. Several glacier parameters, such as albedo, reflectance, surface temperature, melting, glacier zones, glacier area, equilibrium line, mass balance, glacier surface and bed topography, glacier volume, and glacier velocity are indeed possible to detect using terrestrial, airborne or spaceborne remote sensing data. In some cases, the detection is not realistically possible with any means other than remote sensing (e.g. glacier area), but in some cases remote sensing is provided as an alternative to replace labour intensive, though very interesting and sometimes joyful, glaciological field work. In order to use glaciers and their changes as indicators of climate change, or as an early warning signal for sea level rise, remote sensing is the only tool to provide glacier change information from all the continents and from a large number of glaciers and ice sheets, as discussed in Chapter 15. To develop an operational monitoring system was also one of the aims of the OMEGA project. In the past and the present, several initiatives are compiling and distributing glacier data, including the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS) and Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS). On the other hand, remote sensing can never totally replace glaciological field work and measurements, which are always needed as ground truth data, but the current and many future instruments may facilitate the work and create new applications and possibilities for discovery.