Machine-based snow line determination and the identification of ice sheet features in visible and SAR imagery

Abstract

This study contributes to the study of the glacier mass balance in two aspects. First, the possibility of automated (machine-based) determination of the snow line position in the visible imagery is assessed. A texture parameter, the fractal dimension, is found to be characteristic of snow/ice facies and will thus be especially useful in the development of automatic algorithms. Secondly, the identification of glaciological features in SAR imagery is validated against aerial photography.