Unlocking the glaciological information of historical aerial imagery to obtain long-term glacier mass balance information and to identify drivers of glacier changes on the Antarctic Peninsula.

南极半岛是全球气候变暖的热点地区，其冰盖和出口冰川发生了巨大的变化。自20世纪50年代以来，整个南极半岛都报告了明显的冰川衰退，在过去的几十年里，许多冰架解体或显著退缩。因此，南极半岛的冰块对全球海平面上升起着重要作用。然而，由于各种问题，南极半岛的质量预算的估计受到相当大的不确定性。此外，关于物质平衡演变的长期资料只存在于数量非常有限的冰川中。自20世纪50年代以来，人们进行了各种空中活动，以绘制南极半岛的地图。获得的摄影测量图像构成了一个关于历史冰川状态信息的“时间胶囊”。因此，我们在这个项目中的目标是通过应用最先进的摄影测量分析技术来重建前冰川表面高程，从而从历史航空图像中解锁这些信息。该分析将通过提供精确的地面控制点来支持，这些控制点将在2022年底与AWI和DLR进行联合航空调查时获得。通过将历史图像显示的信息与德国双基地合成孔径雷达使命TanDEM-X的最新地表高程信息相结合，将有助于计算南极半岛的长期冰川体积和质量变化。最后，所有关于冰川变化的现有信息将与海洋，大气和冰川几何参数相关联，以确定所揭示的冰川变化的驱动因素。这些信息将有助于更好地了解正在进行的过程和不同领域之间的相互作用，并将非常有益的预测冰川演变的AP冰盖和未来的海平面上升的贡献。

The Antarctic Peninsula is a hot spot of global warming and leading to considerable changes in its ice sheet and outlet glaciers. Pronounced glacier recession has been reported since the 1950s throughout the Antarctic Peninsula and many of its ice shelves disintegrated or significantly retreated within the last decades. Consequently, the ice masses of the Antarctic Peninsula contribute significantly to global sea-level rise. However, estimates of the mass budget of the Antarctic Peninsula are subjected to considerable uncertainties due to various issues. Moreover, long-term information on the evolution of the mass balances exists only for a very limited amount of glaciers.Since the 1950s, various aerial campaigns were carried out to map the Antarctic Peninsula. The acquired photogrammetric imagery poses a “time capsule” of information on the historic glacier states. Thus, we aim within this project to unlock this information from the historic aerial imagery by applying state-of-the-art photogrammetric analysis techniques to reconstruct the former glacier surface elevations. The analysis will be supported by providing precise ground control points, which will be acquired during a joint aerial survey with AWI and DLR in late 2022. By combining the information revealed from the historic imagery with recent surface elevation information from the German bistatic SAR mission TanDEM-X, the computation of long-term glacier volume and mass changes on the Antarctic Peninsula will be facilitated. Finally, all available information on glacier changes will be correlated with oceanic, atmospheric, and glacier geometry parameters in order to identify driving factors of the revealed glacier variations. This information will facilitate a better understanding of the ongoing processes and interaction between the different spheres, and will be highly beneficial for projections of glacier evolution on the AP Ice Sheet and future sea-level rise contribution.