Antarctic Peninsula

This ERS-1 SAR image series shows the north-eastern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula with the ice-covered Tabarin Peninsula extending into Erebus and Terror Gulf.
In this image, which has been acquired on 14-1-1992, James Ross Island is partly visible in the lower left corner and it is covered by an ice cap of 200m to 300 m in thickness with the highest elevation at 1600 m. The northern part of the island is partly ice-free. The central part of the ice cap is cold, resulting in high radar reflectivity in all of the images with the exception of 23 January 1992 when the reduced reflectivity indicates surface melt up to the highest elevations. The ice cap drains over steep cliffs, giving origin to outlet glaciers extending into the sea. Low reflectivity of these glaciers indicates surface melt throughout the month of January. Radar return from the ice surfaces outlet glaciers increases during February because of freezing.

North of James Ross Island is Vega Island, which has an east-west extent of 30 km and is to a large part also covered with an ice cap. Increasing radar reflectivity of the ice cap and glaciers from January to March is the result of an increasing freezing depth in snow and ice.
East of James Ross Island is ice-free Seymour Island where the Argentinian station Marambio is located at a Meseta in the northern part rising to 200 m altitude. The island is made up by sediments from the Cretaceous, Tertiary, and Quaternary periods. In these formations unique assemblages of fossils have been found since the discovery of the island at the turn of the century.

The sequence of images from 14 January to 11 March 1992 reveals changing condition of ice and sea state in the ocean and channels surrounding the islands. Only few scattered ice floes are visible in the images of
14 January ,
23 January,
29 January,
and 7 February .

The ocean return in the image of 23 January indicates heavy storm from north-westerly direction with advection of warm air.
Formation of fresh ice can be observed on 16 February and 22 February .

In the images from 2 March and 11 March floes of old sea ice coming from south are visible in addition to different types of fresh ice.

H. Rott, Innsbruck, Austria

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry