| Autor: |
Amaury Dehecq, Alex S. Gardner, Oleg Alexandrov, Scott McMichael, Romain Hugonnet, David Shean, Mauro Marty |
| Jazyk: |
angličtina |
| Rok vydání: |
2020 |
| Předmět: |
|
| Zdroj: |
Frontiers in Earth Science, Vol 8 (2020) |
| Druh dokumentu: |
article |
| ISSN: |
2296-6463 |
| DOI: |
10.3389/feart.2020.566802 |
| Popis: |
Observing changes in Earth surface topography is crucial for many Earth science disciplines. Documenting these changes over several decades at regional to global scale remains a challenge due to the limited availability of suitable satellite data before the year 2000. Declassified analog satellite images from the American reconnaissance program Hexagon (KH-9), which surveyed nearly all land surfaces from 1972 to 1986 at meter to sub-meter resolutions, provide a unique opportunity to fill the gap in observations. However, large-scale processing of analog imagery remains challenging. We developed an automated workflow to generate Digital Elevation Models and orthophotos from scanned KH-9 mapping camera stereo images. The workflow includes a preprocessing step to correct for film and scanning distortions and crop the scanned images, and a stereo reconstruction step using the open-source NASA Ames Stereo Pipeline. The processing of several hundreds of image pairs enabled us to estimate reliable camera parameters for each KH-9 mission, thereby correcting elevation biases of several tens of meters. The resulting DEMs were validated against various reference elevation data, including snow-covered glaciers with limited image texture. Pixel-scale elevation uncertainty was estimated as 5 m at the 68% confidence level, and less than 15 m at the 95% level. We evaluated the uncertainty of spatially averaged elevation change and volume change, both from an empirical and analytical approach, and we raise particular attention to large-scale correlated biases that may impact volume change estimates from such DEMs. Finally, we present a case study of long-term glacier elevation change in the European Alps. Our results show the suitability of these historical images to quantitatively study global surface change over the past 40–50 years. |
| Databáze: |
Directory of Open Access Journals |
| Externí odkaz: |
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