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A manuscript by Mankoff and Russo entitled “The Kinect: A low-cost, high-resolution, short-range, 3D camera” has been accepted with minor revisions by the journal Earth Surface Processes and Landforms (ESPL).
It can be cited as doi: 10.1002/esp.3332
The role of Pine Island Glacier ice shelf basal channels in deep-water upwelling, polynyas and ocean circulation in Pine Island Bay, Antarctica
Several hundred visible and thermal infrared satellite images of Antarctica’s southeast Amundsen Sea from 1986 to 2011, combined with aerial observations in 2009, show a strong inverse relation between prominent curvilinear surface depressions and the underlying basal morphology of the outer Pine Island Glacier ice shelf. Shipboard measurements near the calving front reveal positive temperature, salinity and current anomalies indicative of melt-laden, deep-water outflows near and above the larger channel termini. These buoyant plumes rise to the surface and are expressed as small polynyas in the sea ice and thermal signatures in the open water. The warm upwellings also trace the cyclonic surface circulation in Pine Island Bay. The satellite coverage suggests changing modes of ocean/ ice interactions, dominated by leads along the ice shelf through 1999, fast ice and polynyas from 2000 to 2007, and larger areas of open water since 2008.
@article{Mankoff:2012The-role,
Title = {{The role of Pine Island Glacier ice shelf basal
channels in deep water upwelling, polynyas, and
ocean circulation in Pine Island Bay, Antarctica}},
Author = {Kenneth D. Mankoff and Stanley S. Jacobs and
Slawek M. Tulaczyk and Sharon E. Stammerjohn},
Journal = {Annals of Glaciology},
Number = {60},
Volume = {53},
Year = {2012},
DOI = {10.3189/2012AoG60A062}}
Tags: Antarctica, map, NASA, NBP09-01, PhD, Pine Island Glacier, publication, Research 
Pine Island Glacier and Pine Island Bay
Pine Island Bay in the southeast Amundsen Sea, Antarctica, on 16 Nov 2008. Upwelling, melt-laden outflow plumes emerge from beneath the adjacent Pine Island Glacier ice shelf (top center) and mix in the bay waters. Warm red colors show sea surface temperatures more than a degree warmer than the near-freezing dark blue color. Cyclonic circulation in the bay is framed by the ice shelf, land ice and sea ice, in gray-scale with the darker shades colder. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus image, thermal infrared (channel 6H), subset of scene #LE72331132008321EDC00.
@article{Mankoff:2012The-role,
Title = {{The role of Pine Island Glacier ice shelf basal
channels in deep water upwelling, polynyas, and
ocean circulation in Pine Island Bay, Antarctica}},
Author = {Kenneth D. Mankoff and Stanley S. Jacobs and
Slawek M. Tulaczyk and Sharon E. Stammerjohn},
Journal = {Annals of Glaciology},
Number = {60},
Volume = {53},
Year = {2012},
DOI = {10.3189/2012AoG60A062}}
Tags: Antarctica, ice, map, PhD, Pine Island Glacier, Places, publication, Research, Visualization Last week I presented a poster at the 2011 AGU Fall Meeting. It has generated some press thanks to an article in Wired. If you are interested in the poster it is available by clicking on the image below.
AGU Poster: `Kinects as sensors in earth science: glaciological, geomorphological, and hydrological applications`
@conference{Mankoff:2011Kinects,
Author = {Kenneth D. Mankoff and Tess Alethea Russo and
Benjamin Kenneth Norris and Saffia Hossainzadeh and
Lucas H. Beem and Jacob I. Walter and
Slawek M. Tulaczyk},
Title = {{Kinects as sensors in earth science: glaciological,
geomorphological, and hydrological applications}},
Address = {San Francisco, CA},
Booktitle = {American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting},
Month = {December 5 - 9,},
Note = {Abstract \#C41D-0442.},
Year = {2011}}
Tags: Kinect, Media, PhD, publication, Research Following up on my previous post about using the Kinect for earth science applications, I’m documenting the Kinect Go Kit I built for fieldwork.
Kinect Go Kit: Top level
Kinect Go Kit Pelican Case
I travel with two Kinects, two power supplies, and two computers in case one gets damaged or destroyed in the field, although only one computer is in the kit.
The Netbook is a cheap $240 computer running Ubuntu and the libfreenect software stack at a minimum. I have also found it useful to have more advanced data collection software (ROS, RGBDemo, RGBDSLAM), and some analysis software (CloudCompare, points2grid, Viewpoints, etc.). This netbook works fine for raw data dumps from the libfreenect ‘record’ program. It can run the more computationally expensive scene stitching algorithms such as RGBDSLAM, but it takes about 10 seconds per stitch, while a more powerful laptop (but still a few years old) can do it at 0.5 to 1 Hz. Since ‘record’ collects about 1.5 GB of data per minute, it is good to have a lot of free space on the hard drive.
The plugs and cables are shown laid out below, and in addition, some velcro straps are stored in that compartment, used to attach the Kinect to the tripod arm.
The Pelican 1510 case supports two levels, and the lower level looks like this:
Kinect Go Kit: Bottom level
Battery #1 is a 12 V 5 Ah sealed led acid battery. It provides >5 hours of Kinect runtime, about equal to the runtime of the netbook.
Battery #2 is 8 AA batteries (12 V), and underneath is an 8 AA battery holder and a battery charger. If I need to turn the Kinect on for a short amount of time and want to travel lightly, these will do.
Kinect cable layouts
As shown above the cord to the Kinect can be cut and alligator clips or some other electrical termination can be attached. I often have wall power and have attached clips to the detached plug so I can use it as originally intended. However, when in the field, the clips can connect directly to the 12 V battery or the AA battery pack.
Kinect mounted on tripod
The Kinect Go Kit above is close to the minimum necessary for fieldwork. Things that I would like in it, but are not yet, include:
Additional tools I have found handy to have with me in the field include, but are not limited to, the following:
Tags: Computers, HowTo, Kinect, PhD, Research
A video (and written) news segment on part of my PhD project:
In which I present a rough geo-spatial-temporal map of Pine Island Glacier (PIG) publications.
Geo-spatial-temporal time-map of Pine Island Glacier (PIG) publications
Sometimes I get asked what software/hardware systems I recommend for research. Below is my standard advice. I am a scientific programmer and student and my day-to-day tasks involve research, data analysis, scientific programming, and writing. Data sets might include satellite images, model output, GPS, seismic, and a variety of other data. Data domains are ocean, atmosphere, and/or ice. I travel a lot, either from home to the office or to the field (which might mean months on a boat with no internet connection). Therefore I try to have a setup that supports high performance computing (HPC) on a laptop.
Tags: Computers, HowTo, PhD, Research
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