Ice Surface Velocity in the Eastern Arctic from Past Spaceborne Satellite SAR data

Nearly complete mosaics of winter ice surface velocities for the 1990's over the Eastern Arctic (Novaya Zemlya, Franz-Josef-Land, Severnaya Zemlya and Svalbard) were compiled based on historical SAR data. Offset-tracking to JERS-1 SAR data of the time period 1992-1998 was mainly applied. Data gaps were complemented using SAR interferometry and offset-tracking of ERS-1/2 SAR data of the time period 1991-1997. Knowledge on ice surface velocity of glaciers and ice caps contributes to a better understanding of a wide range of processes related to glacier dynamics, mass change and response to climate. In order to study long-term variability of winter ice surface velocity from the 1990's to present, velocity maps computed with offset-tracking from 2008-2011 ALOS-1 PALSAR-1 and 2020-2021 Sentinel-1 data are also provided.