Glacier Zone Reference Labels for Axel Heiberg, Devon Ice Cap and Manson Icefield

This dataset contains classified glacier-zone maps derived from TerraSAR-X ScanSAR imagery for three glacierized regions in the Canadian Arctic: Axel Heiberg Island, Devon Ice Cap, and Manson Icefield. The dataset provides temporally repeated raster classifications of radar glacier zones between 2017 and 2023. The data was generated from TerraSAR-X ScanSAR scenes provided by the German Aerospace Center (DLR; proposal HYD2385). The SAR imagery was pre-processed using the MultiSAR processing chain and radiometrically calibrated to Gamma-Naught (γ⁰) backscatter coefficients. Glacier zones were derived from calibrated HH-intensity γ⁰ backscatter thresholds and the GLIMS glacier outline masks. The classification follows five radar glacier-zone classes used in the underlying study: Dry Snow Zone, Frozen-Percolation Zone, Superimposed Ice Zone, Bare Ice Zone, and Wet Snow Zone. The threshold-based classification approach was developed from winter-scene backscatter analyses, clustering, histogram analysis, and rigorous comparison with glacier-zone values reported in the literature. The GeoTIFF files contain integer class labels. Pixels outside the glacier outlines and pixels without valid glacier-zone information are encoded as NoData with value 0. Valid glacier-zone classes are encoded as values 1-5: 1 Dry Snow Zone 2 Frozen-Percolation Zone 3 Superimposed Ice Zone 4 Bare Ice Zone 5 Wet Snow Zone The dataset has a spatial sampling of approximately 40 m. The files are provided in the respective UTM coordinate reference systems of the study areas: WGS 84 / UTM Zone 15N (EPSG:32615) for Axel Heiberg Island and WGS 84 / UTM Zone 17N (EPSG:32617) for Devon Ice Cap and Manson Icefield. The raster files are single-band GeoTIFFs with unsigned 8-bit integer class values. The available classified maps cover: Axel Heiberg Island:175 GeoTIFFs, 2017-05-28 to 2023-09-24 Devon Ice Cap:190 GeoTIFFs, 2017-04-12 to 2023-09-22 Manson Icefield:148 GeoTIFFs, 2017-05-25 to 2023-09-10 The file names follow the acquisition-date format: YYYYMMDD.tif