The Multi-Pairwise Image Correlation (MPIC) processing chain, an end-to-end online service for ice motion monitoring using optical imagery

Abstract

Documenting ground deformation is important for a range of areas in Earth and environmental sciences (such as earthquake, volcanoes, landslides and glaciers/ice sheets monitoring). In particular monitoring the deformation of the cryosphere is key to understand its evolution in a context of global changes, through the creation of long-term ice velocity datasets, but also possibly detect failure onsets. The availability of optical satellite constellations with a frequent revisit time at medium to high spatial resolution and an open access policy (e.g. Sentinel 2, Landsat 7/8) provides the potential to contribute to ice monitoring on a global basis. However, this observational capability also represents a challenge in term of storage capacity and computing resources which together with the complexity of the tuning of the different parameters, may prevent users from exploiting the data.