White Glacier 2014, Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut: mapped using Structure from Motion methods

ABSTRACT

We use Structure from Motion software to generate a new digital elevation model (DEM) of White Glacier, Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, using >400 oblique aerial photographs collected in July 2014. Spatially and radiometrically high-resolution imagery, optimized camera settings, low angle lighting conditions, and photo post-processing methods together supported the detection of small but distinct features on the surface of the snowpack and enabled feature matching during the image correlation process. The resulting DEM and orthoimage facilitated the production of a new 1:10,000 topographic map with 5 m vertical accuracy in the style of earlier cartographic works of White Glacier dating back to 1960. The new map of White Glacier will support calculation of the glacier's geodetic mass balance (mass change determined from ice volume change over the past 54 years) and provides an updated glacier hypsometry (area-elevation distribution) that will improve the accuracy of future mass balance calculations.