Brief communication: Mapping Greenland's perennial firn aquifers using enhanced-resolution L-band brightness temperature image time series

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https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/14/2809/2020/

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https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2809-2020
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/24266

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UMBC Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET)
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https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9606-767X

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2020-09-02

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journal articles
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Miller, Julie Z. et al. Brief communication: Mapping Greenland's perennial firn aquifers using enhanced-resolution L-band brightness temperature image time series. The Cryosphere 14 (Sept. 2, 2020). https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2809-2020.

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Abstract

Enhanced-resolution L-band brightness temperature (Tʙ) image time series generated from observations collected over the Greenland Ice Sheet by NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite are used to map Green land’s perennial firn aquifers from space. Exponentially decreasing L-band Tʙ signatures are correlated with perennial firn aquifer areas identified via the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS) Multi-Channel Coherent Radar Depth Sounder (MCoRDS) that was flown by NASA’s Operation IceBridge (OIB) campaign. An empirical algorithm to map extent is developed by fitting these signatures to a set of sigmoidal curves. During the spring of 2016, perennial firn aquifer areas are found to extend over ∼ 66 000 km².