Thermal properties of ice bodies in East Antarctica: exploiting ASTER data in the Northern Victoria Land area

The paper addresses the use of TERRA-ASTER thermal infrared data for investigation of ice and bedrocks properties in the Northern Victoria Land, East Antarctica. Data acquired by the TIR (Thermal Infrared Radiometer) sub-system were processed in order to retrieve information about the ground temperature and thermal anomalies over a coastal area characterized by the presence of glaciers, ice shelves, exposed bedrock, sea-ice and the Mount Melbourne volcanic edifice. As discussed in this paper, a deeper knowledge of the ice mass exchanges dynamics could be therefore derived from the analysis of the thermal properties at the ground which have the potential to highlight features that are undetectable by the use of visible channels