Monitoring temperate glacier with high resolution automated digital cameras - Application to the Argentière glacier

Article en ligneIn the context of global warming, the monitoring of temperate glaciers is an important issue for economical and security reasons (water and energy resources, falling ice...) and climate change monitoring. In the glaciologist community this monitoring is based on ground measurements yielding specific information about mass-balance and ice flow. Unfortunately the daily variation measurements of the ice flow are impossible because this information is usually determined with annual temporal distance. However, this traditional monitoring can be now completed with alternative measurement devices which make daily monitoring possible: satellite, GPS, camera... Thanks to high resolution digital cameras installed near the Argentière glacier (massif of Mont Blanc, France), an exceptional set of optical images is available. This article aims to discuss the possibility to use it for daily monitoring, in particular to estimate the glacier-velocity with optimized correlation technique