An analysis of daily ice motion over the Yermak Plateau

The ERS-1 SAR images from cross orbit or neighbouring orbit provide an image sequence with short time interval (e.g. one day ). In this paper, such an image sequence has shown great potential for studying the ice motion with daily variations due to wind, currents and tides. Two algorithms, the fast correlation and the optical flow algorithms, are applied to an image sequence over the north part of the Yermak Plateau which has been recognised as a region having complex ice drifts due to the integrated affects of wind, tides and mixing of the surface polar water and underlying warmer Atlantic water. The early results show that besides the wind forced drift the ice motion has the components with circular property that may be the affect of the tidal ellipse and the ice deformation has some relation with the topography of the plateau.