Snow cover investigations by means of ERS-SAR imagery on the Antarctic Peninsula

The west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula (AP) is an area of extraordinary sensitivity in respect to climate change. However, sparse meteorological data hampers the assessment of regional climate trends. The mountain chain of the AP covers a wide range of climates, because of its large extension from north to south. Consequently, regional circulation pattern and latitudinal and hypsometric temperature gradients lead to spatial differentiation of the types of the permanent snow cover. Climate variations influence the distribution of dry snow zone, percolation zone and wet snow zone. Therefore, changes of the spatial pattern of these snow zones can be attributed to regional climate change.