Antarctic Ice Sheet Velocity and Mapping Project (AIV)

Antarctic Ice Sheet Velocity and Mapping (AIV) is a NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) project. Developed by scientists for scientists, MEaSUREs projects facilitate the development of value-added products derived from satellite observations.

The AIV project was designed to collect multiyear, digital records of Antarctic ice velocity. These data products help document changes in:

• Ice sheet dynamics and boundaries
• Rates of ice mass flow to the ocean and contribution to sea level rise
• Sensitivity of ice dynamics to climate forcing on decadal time scales

AIV products are made through well-proven, extensively documented, peer-reviewed algorithms and numerical tools that have been refined over a period of decades. AIV products use state-of-the-art techniques in mapping ice sheet velocity from space. The results are independent of cloud cover and solar illumination, and offer a uniform, high-resolution sampling of the entire Antarctic continent. AIV temporal coverage ranges from the early 1990s to the present. AIV products are compiled from myriad satellites and sensors:

• Canadian Space Agency's (CSA) RADARSAT-2 and RADARSAT-1
• Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Advanced Land Observing Satellite "DAICHI" (ALOS), Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 "DAICHI-2" (ALOS-2) PALSAR-2, and ALOS PALSAR
• European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-1, Envisat Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR), and European Remote Sensing satellites 1 and 2 (ERS-1 and -2)
• U.S. Geological Survey's/NASA's Landsat

Team

The AIV project principal investigators are Eric Rignot of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of California, Irvine; and Bernd Scheuchl of the University of California, Irvine. Jeremie Mouginot of the Institut des Géosciences de l'Environnement also served as a principal investigator.

Funding

Antarctic Ice Sheet Velocity and Mapping (AIV) is a NASA Making Earth System Data Records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) project. MEaSUREs projects enable Earth science researchers to develop satellite-derived, value-added data products.

Sample Data Images

MEaSUREs Antarctic Grounding Line from Differential Satellite Radar Interferometry (nsidc-0498) sample image

MEaSUREs InSAR-Based Antarctica Ice Velocity Map (nsidc-0484) sample image

MEaSUREs Antarctic Boundaries for IPY 2007-2009 from Satellite Radar (nsidc-0709) sample image