Articles | Volume 12, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1811-2018
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-12-1811-2018
Research article
 | 
31 May 2018
Research article |  | 31 May 2018

Automated detection of ice cliffs within supraglacial debris cover

Sam Herreid and Francesca Pellicciotti

Model code and software

Debris Cover Tools Sam Herreid https://github.com/samherreid/DebrisCoverTools

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Short summary
Ice cliffs are steep, bare ice features that can develop on the lower reaches of a glacier where the surface is covered by a layer of rock debris. Debris cover generally slows the rate of glacier melt, but ice cliffs act as small windows of higher rates of melt. It is therefore important to map these features, a process which we have automated. On a global scale, ice cliffs have variable geometries and characteristics. The method we have developed can accommodate this variability automatically.