Antarctic Ice Sheet Surface Mass Balance Using UAV-Based Digital Elevation Model

A glacier’s mass balance is the difference between the quantity of snow that accumulates in the winter and quantity of the ice that melts in the summer. A positive mass balance indicates that the glacier is gaining ice, whereas a negative mass balance indicates that the glacier is losing ice. Ice sheets are continental glaciers whose thickness of ice varies from several kilometers at the center to tens of meters at the edges. The main objective of the study is to quantify the net change in mass over a short period of 7 days during Austral summer (2022–2023) over a portion of the ice sheet margin (70°46′22.13″S, 11°45′11.62″E) located in central Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica using unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based multispectral datasets. Two digital elevation models (DEMs) were generated from UAV (real-time kinematics enabled) data for estimating the change in mass by calculating the elevation change. The findings revealed that the study area experienced a significant elevation change of 1.60 m within a week-long duration (10/12/2022–17/12/2022), which is an exceptional rate of change for 7 days of interval. The outcomes of this research, therefore, provide crucial data for understanding the hydrological processes and climate dynamics that govern the sea level increase.