Digital comparison of high resolution Sojuzkarta KFA-1000 imagery of ice masses with Landsat and SPOT data

Russian satellite imagery of the polar regions has recently become available to western scientists through Sojuzkarta. The KFA-1000 photographic camera is of particular interest to glaciologists due to its high resolution (a nominal 5 m). Digitized photographic products from this instrument are compared with digital data from Landsat and SPOT series satellites for a partly glacierized area of northwest Spitsbergen. Comparison of KFA-1000 data with detailed maps of man-made structures at the settlement of Ny Ålesund demonstrates that the resolution of the photographic imagery is about 3 m, but scanner resolution limited our digital data to about 6 m. Significantly less detail can be resolved on Landsat TM imagery and Landsat MSS data fail to resolve any of the structures. KFA-1000 data are compared with Landsat TM and MSS images and SPOT HRV multispectral imagery for several tidewater glaciers in Spitsbergen. KFA-1000 imagery is of a significantly higher geometric resolution than the other sensors, allowing the clear identification of individual crevasses and other ice surface features. KFA-1000 scenes from 1985 and 1988 are used to measure ice marginal fluctuations for several northwest Spitsbergen glaciers, and the onset of a surge can also be identified. This imagery has a 60% overlap between scenes and the heighting accuracy of the stereoscopic data is calculated at 45 m. Radiometric analysis of KFA-1000 data is restricted to relative brightness values, since no absolute calibration is available. The photographic products appear speckled, and the range and standard deviation of normalized pixel brightness values over snow is greater than for equivalent Landsat TM data. The very high spatial resolution of the KFA-1000 camera is its principal attraction for glaciologists.