Comparison Study: Glacier Calving Front Delineation in Synthetic Aperture Radar Images With Deep Learning

Research output: Contribution to journal › Research article › Contributed › peer-review

Contributors

  • Nora Gourmelon - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Konrad Heidler - , Technical University of Munich (Author)
  • Erik Loebel - , Chair of Geodetic Earth System Research (Author)
  • Daniel Cheng - , Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (Author)
  • Julian Klink - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Anda Dong - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Fei Wu - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Noah Maul - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Moritz Koch - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Marcel Dreier - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Dakota Pyles - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Thorsten Seehaus - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Matthias Braun - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Andreas Maier - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)
  • Vincent Christlein - , Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg (Author)

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of glacier calving fronts is essential for sea level rise projections. This study benchmarks Deep Learning systems for front delineation in Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery. While Deep Learning systems exhibit errors up to 221 m, human annotators deviate by only 38 m, underscoring the need for further research.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)11224-11230
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
Volume48
Issue number9
Early online date20 Apr 2026
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2026
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-9874-9295/work/212490969
Scopus 105036646329

Keywords

Keywords

  • comparison study, deep learning, foundation model, Glacier calving front delineation, vision transformer