Observing Changes in Lake Level and Glacial Thickness on the Tibetan Plateau with the Icesat Laser Altimeter

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Observing Changes in Lake Level and Glacial Thickness on the Tibetan Plateau with the Icesat Laser Altimeter Observing changes in lake level and glacial thickness on the Tibetan Plateau with the ICESat laser altimeter Vu Hien Phan Observing changes in lake level and glacial thickness on the Tibetan Plateau with the ICESat laser altimeter Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Technische Universiteit Delft, op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. ir. K.C.A.M. Luyben, voorzitter van het College voor Promoties, in het openbaar te verdedigen op Maandag 26 January 2015 om 15:00 uur door Vu Hien PHAN Master of Engineering in Mapping, Remote Sensing and GIS Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Vietnam geboren te Sa Dec, Vietnam. - i - Dit proefschrift is goedgekeurd door de promoto: Prof. dr. M. Menenti Copromotor: Dr. R.C. Lindenbergh Samenstelling promotiecommissie: Rector Magnificus, voorzitter Prof. dr. M. Menenti Technische Universiteit Delft, promotor Dr. R.C. Lindenbergh Technische Universiteit Delft, copromotor Prof. dr. M. Scaloni Tongji University Prof. dr. ir. Z. Su Universiteit Twente Prof. dr. ir. N.C. van de Giesen Technische Universiteit Delft Dr. J. Kropacek Universität Tübingen Dr. N. Gourmelen The University of Edinburgh Prof. dr. W.G.M. Bastiaanssen Technische Universiteit Delft, reservelid Copyright 2015 by Vu Hien Phan. All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. ISBN 978-94-6186-426-0 Author email: [email protected] or [email protected] - ii - Preface Many people contributed to the successful completion of this thesis in different ways. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all of them. Firstly, I am extremely grateful to my co-promoter Dr. Roderik Lindenbergh. You were always there to help and support me whenever I ran into a problem. I think your support and commitment during my study made other PhDs jealous in our section. In our weekly meetings, you always had excellent advice to give on my technical problems. I really appreciate your patience in correcting my English writing and the constructive feedback on how to write an effective article. Thank you for all your help and support to extend my knowledge and experiences in research. Secondly, I would like to thank Prof. Massimo Menenti, for providing me with the opportunity to carry out my research and for your continuous support. With the extensive knowledge, you always gave me helpful ideas and provided me with clear and in-depth answers to my scientific and technical problems. Also, I would like to thank you for the constructive criticisms and relevant comments on the content of this dissertation. I want to thank the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training and the CEOP- AEGIS project on the Hydrology and Climatology of the Tibetan Plateau, project no. 212921 of the European Commission FP7 program for funding this research. Furthermore, I wish to thank my friends at the OLRS section: Ali Mousivand, Hamid Reza Ghafarian Malamiri, and Seyed Enayat Hosseini Aria for sharing knowledge and experiences in studying and living in Delft and contributed to a nice and enjoyable life at TUDelft. I am thankful to Lidwien De Jong, for all the support to process a lot of documents in regularization enthusiastically. I am also very grateful to Vietnamese students and all other colleagues here at TU Delft. I am indebted to my mother in law for having taken care of my daughter in Vietnam, to my lovely wife for being sympathetic and encouraging to me, and to my beautiful daughter for still recognizing and loving me. Last but not least, I wish to thank my lovely family and friends for their support and encouragement. - iii - - iv - Table of content Preface .......................................................................................................... iii Table of content .............................................................................................. v Abbreviations ................................................................................................ ix Summary ....................................................................................................... xi Samenvatting................................................................................................ xv Tóm tắt ......................................................................................................... xix Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................. 1 1.1. The water balance of the Tibetan Plateau ............................................... 2 1.2. ICESat laser altimetry ............................................................................... 6 1.3. Research question ................................................................................... 8 1.4. Methodology ........................................................................................... 8 1.5. Organization of this thesis ....................................................................... 9 Chapter 2. EXPLOITED REMOTE SENSING DATA ............................................. 11 2.1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 12 2.2. ICESat/GLAS data ................................................................................... 12 2.2.1. ICESat mission .................................................................................. 12 2.2.2. GLAS data products .......................................................................... 16 2.2.3. ICESat GLA14 land surface elevation data ....................................... 16 2.3. Other remote sensing products ............................................................. 20 2.3.1. GLIMS / CAREERI glacier mask ......................................................... 20 2.3.2. MODIS land-water mask .................................................................. 22 2.3.3. SRTM DEM ....................................................................................... 23 2.3.4. HydroSHEDS hydrographic data ....................................................... 23 2.3.5. Landsat TM images .......................................................................... 24 2.4. Conclusions ............................................................................................ 25 Chapter 3. ASSESSING GLACIAL THICKNESS CHANGES AT THE TIBETAN PLATEAU USING ICESAT LASER ALTIMETRY .................................................................. 27 3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 28 3.2. Methodology ......................................................................................... 29 3.2.1. Estimating surface slope and roughness from SRTM DEM .............. 30 - v - 3.2.2. Determining a sampled glacial area ................................................. 32 3.2.3. Identifying a glacial elevation difference ......................................... 32 3.2.4. Different settings with respect to slope and roughness ................... 34 3.2.5. Obtaining mean glacial elevation differences .................................. 35 3.2.6. Estimating a temporal glacial thickness change trend ..................... 36 3.3. Results .................................................................................................... 37 3.3.1. Overall glacial thickness changes: Tibetan Plateau and its basins ... 40 3.3.2. Impact of orientation on glacial thickness change ........................... 42 3.4. Discussion .............................................................................................. 45 3.4.1. Exploring terrain surface criteria ...................................................... 45 3.4.2. State of the GLIMS glacier mask ....................................................... 47 3.4.3. Glacial thickness changes for sub-regions ........................................ 48 3.4.4. Representativeness of an observed glacial area .............................. 50 3.5. Conclusions ............................................................................................ 51 Chapter 4. ESTIMATING ANNUAL LAKE LEVEL TRENDS ON THE TIBETAN PLATEAU ...................................................................................................... 53 4.1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 54 4.2. Methodology .......................................................................................... 56 4.3. Results .................................................................................................... 59 4.3.1. Annual lake level trends all over the Tibetan Plateau ...................... 59 4.3.2. Case studies: comparing GLAS results to LEGOS data ...................... 63 4.4. Discussion .............................................................................................. 64 4.4.1. Disadvantages of the supporting image data: the 250 m MODIS land-water mask and Landsat data ............................................................. 65 4.4.2. Anomalies in the candidate ICESat lake elevations .......................... 65 4.4.3. Determining the threshold value in the RANSAC algorithm ............. 66 4.4.4. Link to physical processes ................................................................. 66 4.5. Conclusions ...........................................................................................
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