Ice velocity measurements of Isunnguata Sermia, West Greenland, from Sentinel-1 image-pair intensity tracking (2014-2025)
GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02191
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).
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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REFERENCE MATERIALS
- https://doi.org/10.1017/jog.2026.10163
- https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JF005492
- https://doi.org/10.3390/rs9101062
- https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8zq2c02m
RELATED DATA SET METADATA
RELATED DATA SET METADATA
- https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02182
- https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02184
- https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02192
- https://data.bas.ac.uk/full-record.php?id=GB/NERC/BAS/PDC/02193
SOFTWARE PACKAGES
License
| Access: | No restrictions apply |
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| Use: | 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/. |
Basic Information
| Creation Date: | 2026-04-24 |
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| Dataset Progress: | Complete |
| Dataset Language: | English |
| ISO Topic Categories: |
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| Parameters: |
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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. |
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| 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. |
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| 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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Extent
| Temporal Coverage: | |
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| 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 |
Storage
| Distribution: | |
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| 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 |