Abstract
This article aims to analyze the dynamics of freezing and thawing of Antarctic lakes located in ice-free areas on Nelson Island and Fildes Peninsula, where response to changes in air temperature and precipitation rates occur rapidly, during the period from July 2016 to December 2018. In these places, which are difficult to access, remote sensing is an important alternative, especially considering the use of active remote sensors such as the Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), which has less restriction regarding the presence of clouds over the study area. Three backscatter thresholds were defined (σ) for the identification of the physical state of the water of the lakes of the study region, applied in Sentinel 1A SAR (S1A) images under Horizontal Horizontal (HH) polarization and Interferometric Wide (IW) imaging mode. These images, along with the air temperature data obtained by the Interim Re-Analysis (ERA-Interim) atmospheric reanalysis model, provided the evidence for the interpretation of the freezing and thawing periods of the lakes. The thresholds applied for the definition of the physical state of the lake water were greater than − 14 dB for frozen water, between − 14 and − 17 dB for the surface, with up to 60% of their frozen area, and less than − 17 dB for open water. The temporal analysis revealed that the lakes start to thaw in October, become completely thawed in February, and freeze again in March. Nevertheless, it can be said that the S1A satellite allows a satisfactory identification of the liquid and solid phases of the water in the lakes of the study region.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agnihotri, A. K., Ohri, A., Gaur, S., Shivam, Das, N., & Mishra, S. (2019). Flood inundation mapping and monitoring using SAR data and its impact on Ramganga River in Ganga basin. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, 191(12), 760. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-019-7903-4.
Alfonso, J. A., Vasquez, Y., Hernandez, A. C., Mora, A., Handt, H., & Sira, E. (2015). Geochemistry of recent lacustrine sediments from Fildes Peninsula, King George Island, maritime Antarctica. Antarctic Science, 27(05), 462–471. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102015000127.
Allison, I., Brandt, R. E., & Warren, S. G. (1993). East Antarctic Sea ice: albedo, thickness distribution, and snow cover. Journal of Geophysical Research, 98(C7), 12417. https://doi.org/10.1029/93JC00648.
Anderson, T. R., Hawkins, E., & Jones, P. D. (2016). CO2, the greenhouse effect and global warming: from the pioneering work of Arrhenius and Callendar to today’s Earth System Models. Endeavour, 40(3), 178–187. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2016.07.002.
Bañón, M., Justel, A., Velázquez, D., & Quesada, A. (2013). Regional weather survey on Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Antarctic Science, 25(2), 146–156. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102012001046.
Bartsch, A., Widhalm, B., Leibman, M., Ermokhina, K., Kumpula, T., Skarin, A., Wilcox, E. J., Jones, B. M., Frost, G. V., Höfler, A., & Pointner, G. (2020). Feasibility of tundra vegetation height retrieval from Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. Remote Sensing of Environment, 237, 111515. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111515.
Beall, B. F. N., Twiss, M. R., Smith, D. E., Oyserman, B. O., Rozmarynowycz, M. J., Binding, C. E., Bourbonniere, R. A., Bullerjahn, G. S., Palmer, M. E., Reavie, E. D., Waters, L. C. D. R. M. K., Woityra, L. C. D. R. W. C., & McKay, R. M. L. (2016). Ice cover extent drives phytoplankton and bacterial community structure in a large north-temperate lake: implications for a warming climate. Environmental Microbiology, 18(6), 1704–1719. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.12819.
Birkenmajer, K. (1989). A guide to tertiary geochronology of King George Island, West Antarctica. Polish Polar Research, 10(4), 555–579.
Bracegirdle, T. J., & Marshall, G. J. (2012). The reliability of Antarctic tropospheric pressure and temperature in the latest global reanalyses. Journal of Climate, 25(20), 7138–7146. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00685.1.
Braun, M., Saurer, H., Vogt, S., Simões, J. C., & Goßmann, H. (2001). The influence of large-scale atmospheric circulation on the surface energy balance of the King George Island ice cap: circulation/energy balance relationships. International Journal of Climatology, 21(1), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.563.
Bremer, U. F. (1998). Morfologia de Bacias de Drenagem da Cobertura de Gelo da Ilha Rei George, Antártica (Dissertação (Mestrado em Sensoriamento Remoto)). Porto Alegre.
Broecker, W. S. (2000). Abrupt climate change: causal constraints provided by the paleoclimate record. Earth-Science Reviews, 51(1–4), 137–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0012-8252(00)00019-2.
Burton-Johnson, A., Black, M., Fretwell, P. T., & Kaluza-Gilbert, J. (2016). An automated methodology for differentiating rock from snow, clouds and sea in Antarctica from Landsat 8 imagery: a new rock outcrop map and area estimation for the entire Antarctic continent. The Cryosphere, 10(4), 1665–1677. https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-1665-2016.
Chapman, W. L., & Walsh, J. E. (2007). A synthesis of Antarctic temperatures. Journal of Climate, 20(16), 4096–4117. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI4236.1.
Christopherson, R. W., & Birkeland, G. H. (2015). Climate change. In Geosystems: an introduction to physical geography (9th ed., pp. 286–321). Boston: Prentice Hall.
Cook, T. L., & Bradley, R. S. (2010). An analysis of past and future changes in the ice cover of two high-Arctic lakes based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Landsat imagery. Arctic, Antarctic, and Alpine Research, 42(1), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1657/1938-4246-42.1.9.
de Andrade, R. P. (2012). Geoquímica de Solos e das Águas da Península Fildes e Ilha Ardley-Antártica Marítima (Tese (Doutorado)). Belo Horizonte: Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
Dozier, J., Schneider, S. R., & McGinnis, D. F. (1981). Effect of grain size and snowpack water equivalence on visible and near-infrared satellite observations of snow. Water Resources Research, 17(4), 1213–1221. https://doi.org/10.1029/WR017i004p01213.
ECMWF | ERA Interim, Daily. (2019). https://apps.ecmwf.int/datasets/data/interim-full-daily/levtype=sfc/. Accessed 3 January 2019.
ESA. (2019). User guides-Sentinel-1 SAR-level-1-sentinel online. https://sentinel.esa.int/web/sentinel/user-guides/sentinel-1-sar/product-types-processing-levels/level-1. Accessed 3 January 2019.
Freeman, A., Zink, M., Caro, E., Moreira, A., Veilleux, L., & Werner, M. (2019). The legacy of the SIR-C/X-SAR radar system: 25 years on. Remote Sensing of Environment, 231, 111255. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111255.
Geldsetzer, T., & van der Sanden, J. J. (2013). Identification of polarimetric and nonpolarimetric C-band SAR parameters for application in the monitoring of lake ice freeze-up. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing, 39(3), 263–275. https://doi.org/10.5589/m13-033.
Grenfell, T. C. (1981). A visible and near-infrared scanning photometer for field measurements of spectral albedo and irradiance under polar conditions. Journal of Glaciology, 27(97), 476–481. https://doi.org/10.3189/S0022143000011503.
Hall, D. K., Fagre, D. B., Klasner, F., Linebaugh, G., & Liston, G. E. (1994). Analysis of ERS 1 synthetic aperture radar data of frozen lakes in northern Montana and implications for climate studies. Journal of Geophysical Research, 99(C11), 22473. https://doi.org/10.1029/94JC01391.
Howat, Morin, P., Poter, C., & Noh, M.-J. (2018). The reference elevation model of Antarctica. Harvard Dataverse. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/SAIK8B.
Howell, S. E. L., Brown, L. C., Kang, K.-K., & Duguay, C. R. (2009). Variability in ice phenology on Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada, from SeaWinds/QuikSCAT: 2000–2006. Remote Sensing of Environment, 113(4), 816–834. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2008.12.007.
Ionita, M., Scholz, P., Grosfeld, K., & Treffeisen, R. (2018) Moisture transport and Antarctic sea ice: austral spring 2016 event. Earth System Dynamics 9(3), 939–954. https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-939-2018
Jansen, E., Overpeck, J., Briffa, K. R., Duplessy, J.-C., Joos, F., Masson-Delmotte, V., et al. (2007). Palaeoclimate. In Climate change 2007: the physical science basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York: Cambridge University Press. https://archive.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch6.html. Accessed 5 May 2020.
Jensen, J. R. (2007). Active and passive microwave remote sensing. In Remote sensing of the environment: an earth resource perspective (2nd ed., pp. 291–334). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Jiahong, W., & Jiancheng, K. (1994). Climate, mass balance and glacial changes on small dome of Collins Ice Cap, King George Island, Antarctica. Antarctic Research, 5(1), 52–61.
Jiahong, W., Jiancheng, K., Jiankang, H., Zichu, X., Leibao, L., & Dali, W. (1998). Glaciological studies on the King George Island ice cap, South Shetland Islands, Antarctica. Annals of Glaciology, 27, 105–109. https://doi.org/10.3189/1998AoG27-1-105-109.
Kaplan, M. R., Strelin, J. A., Schaefer, J. M., Peltier, C., Martini, M. A., Flores, E., Winckler, G., & Schwartz, R. (2020). Holocene glacier behavior around the northern Antarctic Peninsula and possible causes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 534, 116077. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116077.
King, J. C., & Turner, J. (1997). Physical climatology. In Antarctic meteorology and climatology (1st ed., pp. 61–141). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511524967.
Köppen, W. (1948). Climatologia: con un studio de los climas de la tierra. México: Fondo de Cultura Economica.
Kraus, S. (2005). Magmatic dyke systems of the South Shetland Islands volcanic arc (West Antarctica): reflections of the geodynamic history (Tese de doutorado). Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.
Kutzbach, J. E., & Guetter, P. J. (1986). The influence of changing orbital parameters and surface boundary conditions on climate simulations for the past 18 000 years. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 43(16), 1726–1759. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0469(1986)043<1726:TIOCOP>2.0.CO;2.
Lacis, A. A., Schmidt, G. A., Rind, D., & Ruedy, R. A. (2010). Atmospheric CO2: principal control knob governing Earth’s temperature. Science, 330(6002), 356–359. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1190653.
Lee, J.-S. (1980). Digital image enhancement and noise filtering by use of local statistics. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, PAMI-2(2), 165–168. https://doi.org/10.1109/TPAMI.1980.4766994.
Loew, A., & Mauser, W. (2007). Generation of geometrically and radiometrically terrain corrected SAR image products. Remote Sensing of Environment, 106(3), 337–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2006.09.002.
Mätzler, C., & Schanda, E. (1984). Snow mapping with active microwave sensors. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 5(2), 409–422. https://doi.org/10.1080/01431168408948816.
Michel, R. F. M., Schaefer, C. E. G. R., López-Martínez, J., Simas, F. N. B., Haus, N. W., Serrano, E., & Bockheim, J. G. (2014). Soils and landforms from Fildes Peninsula and Ardley Island, Maritime Antarctica. Geomorphology, 225, 76–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2014.03.041.
Morris, K., Jeffries, M. O., & Weeks, W. F. (1995). Ice processes and growth history on Arctic and sub-Arctic lakes using ERS-1 SAR data. Polar Record, 31(177), 115–128. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247400013619.
Murfitt, J., Brown, L., & Howell, S. (2018). Evaluating RADARSAT-2 for the monitoring of lake ice phenology events in mid-latitudes. Remote Sensing, 10(10), 1641. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10101641.
Nagler, T., Rott, H., Ripper, E., Bippus, G., & Hetzenecker, M. (2016). Advancements for snowmelt monitoring by means of Sentinel-1 SAR. Remote Sensing, 8(4), 348. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs8040348.
Nedbalová, L., Nývlt, D., Kopáček, J., Šobr, M., & Elster, J. (2013). Freshwater lakes of Ulu Peninsula, James Ross Island, north-east Antarctic Peninsula: origin, geomorphology and physical and chemical limnology. Antarctic Science, 25(03), 358–372. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954102012000934.
Nihashi, S., & Ohshima, K. I. (2015). Circumpolar mapping of Antarctic coastal polynyas and landfast sea ice: relationship and variability. Journal of Climate, 28(9), 3650–3670. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00369.1.
Øvstedal, D. O., & Smith, R. I. L. (2001). Lichens of Antarctica and South Georgia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quayle, W. C. (2002). Extreme responses to climate change in Antarctic lakes. Science, 295(5555), 645–645. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1064074.
Rouse, W. R., Blanken, P. D., Duguay, C. R., Oswald, C. J., & Schertzer, W. M. (2008). Climate-Lake Interactions. In M. Woo (Ed.), Cold region atmospheric and hydrologic studies. The Mackenzie GEWEX Experience: Volume 2: Hydrologic Processes (pp. 139–160). Berlin: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-75136-6_8.
Schwerdtfeger, W. (1976). Changes of temperature field and ice conditions in the area of the Antarctic Peninsula. Monthly Weather Review, 104(11), 1441–1443. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1976)104<1441:COTFAI>2.0.CO;2.
Shevnina, E., & Kourzeneva, E. (2017). Thermal regime and components of water balance of lakes in Antarctica at the Fildes peninsula and the Larsemann Hills. Tellus A: Dynamic Meteorology and Oceanography, 69(1), 1317202. https://doi.org/10.1080/16000870.2017.1317202.
Siegel, S., & Castellan, N. J. (1988). Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Simões, J. C., Bremer, U. F., Aquino, F. E., & Ferron, F. A. (1999). Morphology and variations of glacial drainage basins in the King George Island ice field, Antarctica. Annals of Glaciology, 29, 220–224. https://doi.org/10.3189/172756499781821085.
Simonov, I. M. (1977). Physical-geographic description of the Fildes Peninsula (South Shetland Islands). Polar Geography, 1(3), 223–242. https://doi.org/10.1080/10889377709388627.
Skakun, S., Kussul, N., Shelestov, A. Y., Lavreniuk, M., & Kussul, O. (2016). Efficiency assessment of multitemporal C-band Radarsat-2 intensity and Landsat-8 surface reflectance satellite imagery for crop classification in Ukraine. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 9(8), 3712–3719. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTARS.2015.2454297.
Stettner, S., Lantuit, H., Heim, B., Eppler, J., Roth, A., Bartsch, A., & Rabus, B. (2018). TerraSAR-X time series fill a gap in spaceborne snowmelt monitoring of small Arctic catchments—a case study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada. Remote Sensing, 10(7), 1155. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155.
Surdu, C., Duguay, C., Pour, H., & Brown, L. (2015). Ice freeze-up and break-up detection of shallow lakes in northern Alaska with spaceborne SAR. Remote Sensing, 7(5), 6133–6159. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs70506133.
Tsai, Y.-L. S., Dietz, A., Oppelt, N., & Kuenzer, C. (2019). Remote sensing of snow cover using spaceborne SAR: a review. Remote Sensing, 11(12), 1456. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121456.
Turner, J. (2002). Spatial variability of Antarctic Peninsula net surface mass balance. Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(D13), 4173. https://doi.org/10.1029/2001JD000755.
Turner, J., Barrand, N. E., Bracegirdle, T. J., Convey, P., Hodgson, D. A., Jarvis, M., Jenkins, A., Marshall, G., Meredith, M. P., Roscoe, H., Shanklin, J., French, J., Goosse, H., Guglielmin, M., Gutt, J., Jacobs, S., Kennicutt II, M. C., Masson-Delmotte, V., Mayewski, P., Navarro, F., Robinson, S., Scambos, T., Sparrow, M., Summerhayes, C., Speer, K., & Klepikov, A. (2014). Antarctic climate change and the environment: an update. Polar Record, 50(03), 237–259. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247413000296.
Van Wessem, J. M., Reijmer, C. H., van de Berg, W. J., van den Broeke, M. R., Cook, A. J., van Ulft, L. H., & van Meijgaard, E. (2015). Temperature and wind climate of the Antarctic Peninsula as simulated by a high-resolution regional atmospheric climate model. Journal of Climate, 28(18), 7306–7326. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0060.1.
Vaughan, D. G., Marshall, G. J., Connolley, W. M., Parkinson, C., Mulvaney, R., Hodgson, D. A., King, J. C., Pudsey, C. J., & Turner, J. (2003). Recent rapid regional climate warming on the Antarctic Peninsula. Climatic Change, 60(3), 243–274. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026021217991.
Wakabayashi, H., & Motohashi, K. (2018). Monitoring freezing and thawing of shallow lakes in Northern Alaska using Sentinel-1 data. In IGARSS 2018–2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 7157–7160). Presented at the IGARSS 2018–2018 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, Valencia: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2018.8519086.
White, D. M., Prokein, P., Chambers, M. K., Lilly, M. R., & Toniolo, H. (2008). Use of synthetic aperture radar for selecting Alaskan lakes for winter water use 1. JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 44(2), 276–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-1688.2007.00160.x.
Zhou, C., & Zheng, L. (2017). Mapping radar glacier zones and dry snow line in the Antarctic Peninsula using Sentinel-1 images. Remote Sensing, 9(11), 1171. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9111171.
Zimov, S. A., Voropaev, Y. V., Semiletov, I. P., Davidov, S. P., Prosiannikov, S. F., Chapin, F. S., et al. (1997). North Siberian lakes: a methane source fueled by Pleistocene carbon. Science, 277(5327), 800–802. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.277.5327.800.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), process 310758/2016-5, Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Level Personnel—Brazil (CAPES)—Code of Financing 001, for promoting the development of this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
da Rosa, C.N., Bremer, U.F., Pereira Filho, W. et al. Freezing and thawing of lakes on the Nelson and King George Islands, Antarctic, using Sentinel 1A synthetic aperture radar images. Environ Monit Assess 192, 559 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08526-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08526-5