• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.3
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• pp.495-506
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• 2018

Global interest in climate change and sea level rise has led to active research on the velocities of glaciers. In studies about the velocity of glaciers, in-situ measurements can obtain the most accurate data but have limitations to acquire periodical or long-term data. Offset tracking using SAR is actively being used as an alternative of in-situ measurements. Offset tracking has a limitation in that the accuracy of observation is lower than that of other observational techniques, but it has been improved by recent studies. Recent studies in the $Uv{\hat{e}}rsbreen$ glacier area have shown that glacier altitudes decrease at a rate of 1.5 m/year. The glacier displacement velocities in this region are heavily influenced by climate change and can be important in monitoring and forecasting long-term climate change. However, there are few concrete examples of research in this area. In this study, we applied the improved offset tracking method to observe the two-dimensional velocity in the $Uv{\hat{e}}rsbreen$ glacier. As a result, it was confirmed that the glacier moved at a maximum rate of 133.7 m/year. The measruement precisions for azimuth and line-of-sight directions were 5.4 and 3.3 m/year respectively. These results will be utilized to study long-term changes in elevation of glaciers and to study environmental impacts due to climate change.