GLAcier Feature Tracking testkit (GLAFT): a statistically and physically based framework for evaluating glacier velocity products derived from optical satellite image feature tracking

Abstract

Glacier velocity measurements are essential to understand ice flow mechanics, monitor natural hazards, and make accurate projections of future sea-level rise. Despite these important applications, the method most commonly used to derive glacier velocity maps, feature tracking, relies on empirical parameter choices that rarely account for glacier physics or uncertainty. Here we test two statistics- and physics-based metrics to evaluate velocity maps derived from optical satellite images of Kaskawulsh Glacier, Yukon, Canada, using a range of existing feature-tracking workflows. Based on inter-comparisons with ground truth data, velocity maps with metrics falling within our recommended ranges contain fewer erroneous measurements and more spatially correlated noise than velocity maps with metrics that deviate from those ranges. Thus, these metric ranges are suitable for refining feature-tracking workflows and evaluating the resulting velocity products. We have released an open-source software package for computing and visualizing these metrics, the GLAcier Feature Tracking testkit (GLAFT).