Airborne Hyperspectral Imaging of Supraglacial Lakes in Greenland's Ablation Zone

In 2010 an airborne instrument was assembled to image supraglacial lakes near the Jakobshavn Isbrae of the Greenland Ice Sheet. The instrument was designed to fly on a helicopter, and consists of a hyperspectral imager, a GPS/inertial measurement unit (GPS/IMU), and a data-logging computer. A series of narrow visible optical channels ~13nm wide, such as found in a hyperspectral imager, are theorized to be useful in determining the depths of supraglacial lakes using techniques based on the Beer-Lambert-Bouguer Law. During June, several supraglacial lakes were selected for study each day, based upon MODIS imagery taken during the previous week. Flying over a given lake, several track lines were flown to image both shallow and deep sections of the lake, imaging the full range of depth for future algorithm development. The telescoping instrument mount was constructed to allow the sensor package to be deployed from a helicopter in-flight, with an unobstructed downward-facing field of view. The GPS/IMU records the pointing orientation, altitude, and geographical coordinates of the imager to the data-logger, in order to allow post-flight geo-referencing of the raw hyperspectral imagery. With this geo-referenced spectrum data, a depth map for a given lake can be calculated through reference to a water absorptivity model. This risk-reduction expedition to fly a helicopter-borne hyperspectral imager over the supraglacial lakes of Greenland was a success. The instrument mount for the imager worked as designed, and no vibration issues were encountered. As a result, we have confidence in the instrument platform's performance during future surveys of Greenland's supraglacial lakes. The hyperspectral imager, data acquisition computer, and geo-referencing services are provided by Resonon, Inc. of Bozeman, MT, and the GPS/IMU is manufactured by Cloudcap Technology of Hood River, OR.