Extracting Time-Series of Wet-Snow Facies in Greenland Using Sentinel-1 SAR Data on Google Earth Engine

Abstract

Accurate information on the dynamic change of wet-snow facies (WSF) in Greenland is important in investigating the mass balance of Greenland ice sheets and assessing global sea level rise. In this study, we proposed a rapid WSF extraction algorithm, referred to as difference method, for extracting WSF at a continental scale and with high spatial resolution using the Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data available on Google Earth Engine. We used this method to extract the WSF in Greenland from May to October in recent 6 years. Accuracy of the extracted results was evaluated using air temperature data from Greenland automatic weather station. Results suggested that the difference method has good precision in extracting WSF from Sentinel-1 SAR data, and can process a large amount of data simply, quickly, and effectively.