Glaciological Parameter Extraction from Time Series Data of Terrasar-x and Rapid Eye in the Austrian Alps (hintereisferner, Oetztal)

World wide Alpine glaciers suffer from global warming, resulting in a sophisticated melting process affecting the mass balances and the volume of these frozen water resources. In this paper the preliminary results of a joint international glaciological project are presented, which is aimed to make synergetic use of high resolution remote sensing data from different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum in combination with airborne laser scanning data in order to monitor the melting process of Alpine valley glaciers. The test site Hintereisferner was selected due to the excellent data situation of various previous LIDAR data acquisitions (14 in total) and the long tradition of glacialogical field measurements of the University of Innsbruck. From the laser scanning data exact DEMs are derived which are used to georeference the SAR data precisely. The TerraSAR-X X-Band microwave data is analysed according to the different acquisition modes and the multitemporal potential of nine ScanSAR images in relation to glaciological observations. The preliminary results show the capability of the TerraSAR-X data to map surface details along the equilibrium line or the different moraines as well as the option of short time snow cover observations of multitemporal acquisitions. Such a monitoring system documented the possibility of information gains for glaciological inventories and databases. Finally an outlook to the actual summer campaign 2009 with DualPolarization-Mode acquisitions is presented.