Remote sensing in the ‘Big Data’ era is characterised by the availability of petabytes of satellite data, facilitating observations of the cryosphere at increasingly high temporal and spatial scales. In addition, recent advances in close-range sensing technology have resulted in the development of ground-based methods which can “sense” cryospheric environments at high spatial (millimetre to centimetre scale) and temporal (minutes to hours) resolutions. Combined, the datasets acquired from both are invaluable for understanding past and contemporary changes to the cryosphere, which is particularly crucial as climate change continues and extreme events become increasingly frequent.
In order to fully utilise the wealth of satellite and close-range sensing data available, the last decade has seen reliance on new approaches for (i) accessing, (ii) processing, (iii) interpreting, and (iv) distributing results from large-scale datasets. This includes new technologies for data access including cloud-optimised datasets; cloud geoprocessing platforms such as Google Earth Engine, Microsoft Planetary Computer, and community JupyterHubs; the increasing use of large-scale data pipelines and machine/deep learning methods to understand and monitor entire ice sheets, ice shelves, or glaciated regions; and a widespread philosophy of open data and code sharing to enable rapid dissemination of new approaches.
This session seeks contributions from anyone working on remote sensing and close-range sensing of any element of the cryosphere, including glaciers (both land-based or calving), ice sheets, snow and firn, glacial and periglacial environments, and sea ice. In particular, we welcome submissions from those researching the cryosphere using cloud data and processing, large-scale data pipelines, machine and deep learning, open code/data, and other contemporary approaches. In addition, contributions may include the use of close-range sensing methods, including, but not limited to, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), radar, time-lapse photography, TLS and LiDAR.