Discovery Metadata System

Ice velocity measurements of Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland, from Sentinel-1 image-pair intensity tracking (2014-2025)


GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02191

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Summary

Abstract:
Sentinel-1 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Single Look Complex (SLC) image pairs with a 12-day separation period were used to measure ice velocity of Isunnguata Sermia and the nearby ice sheet to investigate the ice flow response to ice marginal lake drainage events. The dataset includes 1657 date-pair mosaics and multi-year averages of ice velocity at 200 x 200 m resolution as well as interpolated daily time-series of ice velocity from key regions of interest along Isunnguata Sermia as described in the associated manuscript (https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2026.10163).

These measurements were generated as part of the NSFGEO-NERC-funded project (#2053169) "Investigating the direct influence of meltwater on Antarctic Ice Sheet dynamics" and curated for the NERC-funded SLIDE (Subglacial Lakes at Isunnguata Sermia: Dynamics and Evolution) research project (NE/X000257/1).

Keywords:
Greenland, Kalaallit Nunaat, Senitnel-1, ice velocity, ice-dammed lake, remote sensing

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Citation

Sole, A., & Davison, B. (2026). Ice velocity measurements of Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland, from Sentinel-1 image-pair intensity tracking (2014-2025) (Version 1.0) [Data set]. NERC EDS UK Polar Data Centre. https://doi.org/10.5285/f43b1190-6fe7-48c1-8757-39ae7a645ecf

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Constraints

Access Constraints:  No restrictions apply
Use Constraints: This data is governed by the NERC data policy http://www.nerc.ac.uk/research/sites/data/policy/ and supplied under Open Government Licence v.3 http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/.

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Basic Information

Creation Date: 2026-04-24
Dataset Progress: Complete
Dataset Language: English
ISO Topic Categories:  
  • Environment
  • Geoscientific Information
Parameters:
  • Cryosphere > Glaciers/Ice Sheets > Glacier Motion/Ice Sheet Motion
  • Cryosphere > Snow/Ice > Ice Velocity
Personnel:
Name UK Polar Data Centre
Role(s) Metadata Author
Organisation British Antarctic Survey
   
Name Andrew Sole
Role(s) Investigator
Organisation University of Sheffield
   
Name Benjamin Davison
Role(s) Investigator
Organisation School of Geography and Planning, University of Sheffield
   
Parent Dataset: N/A

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Additional Information

Reference: Main reference:
Livingstone, S., Storrar, R., Doyle, S., Thorpe, S., Moffatt, A., Sole, A., ... & Booth, A. (2025). Ice dynamic and hydrological response to ice-dammed lake drainages at Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland.https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2026.10163

Lineage reference:
Davison, B.J., Sole, A.J., Cowton, T.R., Lea, J.M., Slater, D.A., Fahrner, D. and Nienow, P.W., 2020. Subglacial drainage evolution modulates seasonal ice flow variability of three tidewater glaciers in southwest Greenland. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 125(9), p.e2019JF005492. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JF005492

Howat, I., Negrete, A. & Smith, B. (2015). MEaSUREs Greenland Ice Mapping Project (GIMP) Digital Elevation Model. (NSIDC-0645, Version 1). [Data Set]. Boulder, Colorado USA. NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/NV34YUIXLP9W. Date Accessed 04-24-2026.

Luttig, C., Neckel, N. and Humbert, A., 2017. A combined approach for filtering ice surface velocity fields derived from remote sensing methods. Remote Sensing, 9(10), p.1062. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9101062

Sandwell, D., Mellors, R., Tong, X., Wei, M. and Wessel, P., 2011. GMTSAR: An InSAR processing system based on generic mapping tools. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8zq2c02m

Jiri Vejrazka (2026). PIVsuite (https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/45028-pivsuite), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved April 21, 2026.
Quality: The error in the velocity estimates is assumed to be equal to the median velocity over bedrock areas during each measurement epoch. Mean errors are 5.6 m yr-1.

Changes in surface characteristics between images (e.g. due to surface melt or snowfall events) lead to unsuccessful velocity retrievals, resulting in data gaps. In these cases, NaN values are used.
Lineage/Methodology: The processing method is detailed in Davison et al. (2020) and summarised briefly here. Sentinel-1 image pair geocoding and co-registration was performed using the Generic Mapping Tools for SAR (GMTSAR) open-source software package (Sandwell et al., 2011) using a 90 m Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (Howat et al., 2015) and precise orbit ephemeris. Intensity tracking was performed in MATLAB using a modified version of PIVSuite (Vejrazka, 2026) with an image patch size of 512x512 pixels and a step length of 64 pixels. Individual velocity swaths collected on common date-pairs were mosaicked to a common grid using the Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) to form 1657 date-pair mosaics at 200 x 200 m resolution, with outliers removed using an image segmentation filter (Luttig et al., 2017). Velocity error is assumed to be equal to the median velocity over bedrock areas.

* Gridded data
The date-pair velocity mosaics are provided as a NetCDF (.nc). Ice velocity averaged over particular time periods displayed in the Livingstone et al. (2026) are provided as GeoTIFF. These data are provided in EPSG:3413 at 200 x 200 m resolution. Units are metres per year.
All gridded data have the naming convention:
IS_YYYYMMDD_YYYYMMDD_<variable>
Where "IS" means Isunnguata Sermia, both dates (YYYYMMDD) correspond to first and last date of the Sentinel-1 images used to generate the measurements provided in the file, and <variable> corresponds to the velocity component.

* Time-series data
The ice velocity data have been averaged for three different sites (D1, D2, D2 and U1 - see "site_information") and provided as time-series. These time-series and associated temporal anomalies are displayed in Figure 5 and Supplementary Figure S4 of the associated manuscript (https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2026.10163).
The .csv timeseries files are named as: IS_YYYYMMDD_YYYYMMDD_<location>

* Site information
The locations from which those time-series were extracted are provided as shapefiles (EPSG: 4326) in the "site_information" directory.

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Locality

Temporal Coverage:
Start Date 2014-10-17
End Date 2025-12-26
   
Spatial Coverage:
Latitude  
Southernmost 67.1
Northernmost 67.25
Longitude  
Westernmost -50.43
Easternmost -49.87
Altitude  
Min Altitude N/A
Max Altitude N/A
Depth  
Min Depth N/A
Max Depth N/A
   
Data Resolution:
Latitude Resolution 200m
Longitude Resolution   200m
Horizontal Resolution Range 100 meters - < 250 meters
Vertical Resolution N/A
Vertical Resolution Range N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Temporal Resolution Range N/A
   
Location:
Location Greenland
Detailed Location   Isunnguata Sermia

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Storage

Distribution:
Distribution Media Online Internet (HTTP)
Distribution Size 360 kB
Distribution Format  TIFF
Fees N/A
   
Distribution Media Online Internet (HTTP)
Distribution Size 10 kB
Distribution Format  SHP
Fees N/A
   
Distribution Media Online Internet (HTTP)
Distribution Size 91 MB
Distribution Format  netCDF
Fees N/A
   
Distribution Media Online Internet (HTTP)
Distribution Size 940 kB
Distribution Format  ASCII
Fees N/A
   
Data Storage: This dataset consists of:
- 9x geoTIFF files ~360 kB
- 1x netCDF file ~91 MB
- 4x txt files ~934kB
- 4x shapefiles ~10kB

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