The Juneau Icefield Research Program (JIRP) is one of the oldest glacier research programs worldwide. It was founded by Prof. Dr. Maynard M. Miller in 1946. Since 1981, the geodetic measurement campaigns of the University of the Federal Armed Forces, Munich University of Technology and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich are conducted. The results of this survey work will be summarized in an annual report on the website crevassezone.org.

Although the implementation of a GPS measurement campaign counts as a standard task in modern geodesy, logistically it is during such an expedition, however, major challenges to the participants and to the material dar. Around the 1st of July each year around to meet the participants in the capital city Juneau a . Over the next seven to eight weeks, the ice rink is then traversed with a Backcountry. The logistics and supplied by helicopter flights. In an ice rink infrastructure in the form of various camps is installed to support the expedition and thus to facilitate the implementation of campaigns across the entire area. From these camps the corresponding field measurements are then carried out. The geodetic measurements, these are mainly longitudinal and transverse profiles and the exact calibration of various project work (eg mass balance analysis, gravimetry, etc.). For these geodetic measurements, the annual height profiles can then also flow rates, glaciers deformations, and with the snow profiles, calculate the mass balances in superposition.

Since the terrestrial and satellite-based measurements can be made only point and line way, there is great interest in the future to win areal information. For this, the TerraSAR-X mission appears exemplary suitable.

Literatur:
Stempfhuber, W.; Wenzel, R.; Die Geodätischen Arbeiten am Juneau Icefield in Alaska; Mitteilungsblatt DVW Bayern e.V. 1/2010