Understanding the response of glaciers to climate change is critical if estimates of future sea level rise are to be better constrained. A significant portion of recent sea level rise is thought to be from small glaciers, unfortunately these are scattered around the world making their contribution extremely difficult to quantify. Contributions tend to be reported for regions or groupings of glaciers and one of the regions with the largest potential contribution is the Arctic. This region has been identified as being extremely sensitive to climate fluctuations and is expected to be one of the first regions to respond to future climate change. The aim of this research is to quantify the surface change two key glaciers on Svalbard, one of the largest groupings, of glaciers in the Arctic. Surface change will be quantified through the use of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) derived from aerial images. The quality of the derived surface is dependent on the quality of the ground data used to generate and validate the model. For this reason, extensive field work was conducted to install a network of accurate GPS points around the study glaciers. A Failure Warning Model (FWM) method is used to assess the reliability of the DEMs and the technique is developed through the implementation of a Multiple input Failure Warning Model (MiFWM) method that is more robust. This thesis shows that both study glaciers have experienced significant change during the study period. The calculated rates of change were comparable both to other ground based estimates and other photogrammetric estimates. In addition, the results do not contradict the suggestion that ground based monitoring methods consistently underestimate glaciers contribution to sea level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:638550 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Pope, A. J. |
| Publisher | Swansea University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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