Thermal imagery in glaciology

Downward-looking airborne thermal image of Canwell Glacier, Alaska Range.

The thermal image below is of fist to silt-sized clasts on an otherwise bare glacier ice surface. This entire image falls within one or two pixels in the above thermal image which is looking straight down from a helicopter with an image width of several hundred meters. High resolution thermal data holds many answers about debris cover but has received limited attention from glaciologists. The 2021 paper referenced below details some uses of thermal data in glaciology.

Thermal Thermal infrared Glacier Research
Sam Herreid
Sam Herreid
glaciologist, runner, musician, writer

My research interests include rock debris on glaciers, advancing regional to global scale glacier modeling and restructuring the financing of climate science.

Publications

What can thermal imagery tell us about glacier melt below rock debris?
Thermal imaging can be a useful tool in glaciology if imaging a debris-covered or near-by surface, this subject is explored in depth in this article.
Sam Herreid
PDF Cite Code Project Supplemental frontiersin.org
What can thermal imagery tell us about glacier melt below rock debris?
Automated detection of ice cliffs within supraglacial debris cover
Ice cliffs within a glacier’s debris cover can be relative hot-spots of increased melt, this paper describes one approach to locating these features.
Sam Herreid, Francesca Pellicciotti
PDF Cite Code Project tc.copernicus.org
Automated detection of ice cliffs within supraglacial debris cover