Automated surface melt detection over the Antarctic from Sentinel-1 imagery using deep learning

作者：Qi Zhu, Huadong Guo, Lu Zhang, Dong Liang, Zherong Wu, Sophie de Roda Husman, Xiaobing Du · 发表于：International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation · 年份：2024 · DOI：10.1016/j.jag.2024.103895 · 被引用次数：5 · 研究领域：Geochemistry and Geologic Mapping、Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction、Mineral Processing and Grinding

Surface melt plays a vital role in impacting the polar mass balance and global sea level rise. Over the past decades, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery has garnered considerable attention due to its capacity to provide high-precision and long-term information. However, the traditional SAR-based large-scale surface melt detection methods utilizing co-orbit normalization predominantly depend on reference images and the precise spatial registration to mitigate geometric distortions arising from diverse incidence angles. Consequently, both the absence of reference imagery and the movement of ice sheets and shelves present challenges to the method. In this study, we address this issue by developing a reference-free deep learning network integrating the Convolutional Block Attention Module (CBAM) into DeepLabv3+ to automatically detect surface melt and establishing the surface melt dataset based on multi-temporal Sentinel-1 SAR imagery, encompassing diverse surface conditions of the Antarctic. Our model achieves an accuracy of 95.67%, surpassing the reference-based method and an advanced deep learning-based approach by 4.23% and 4.67%, respectively. Moreover, compared to 500 m resolution UMelt product and the kilometer-level results obtained from Advanced Scatterometer (ASCAT) and Special Sensor Microwave Imager Sounder (SSMIS), our model demonstrates the capability to accurately capture the small-scale melting patterns of ice shelves with a higher spatial resolution of 40 m. ...