## 1 Introduction
### Remote Sensing Data for King George Island
In 2015, the first Sentinel-2 satellite was launched and two years later, the second one, equipped with a similar sensor (MultiSpectral Instrument--MSI) designed for observing the Earth in 13 spectral bands, including 4 bands at a 10 m spatial resolution with a revisit time of 5 days. In the case of this program, the high spatial resolution of the data, short revisit time, and data availability makes this system crucial in conducting environmental studies, both on a global and regional scale [23]. * The scientific community also has the possibility to take advantage of programmes offered by commercial suppliers. As an example, Planet Labs Inc. is accepting applications from students, researchers, technical staff, and faculty at accredited universities for a Basic Account in the Education and Research Program. In this program, researchers have the opportunity to obtain 10,000 km\({}^{2}\)/month data, free of charge [24]. The main advantage of this Planet data is its high resolution (<5 m) and very frequent revisit time, which results in an almost 100% probability of obtaining satisfying data in such a cloud-covered region like the Southern Shetlands. 2. **Aerial photography. ** The Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) was an aerial survey of the Falkland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, including the South Shetlands Islands, which took place in the 1955-1956 and 1956-1957 southern summers. The mission was held by the British Antarctic Survey as the United Kingdom Antarctic Mapping Centre. The photographic collection comprises of about 12,800 frames taken in high-resolution on 26,700 square kilometres of the ground track [25]. * On the King George Island, there are a number of national polar stations (Figure 1). As a part of the research was conducted there, aerial photography missions were carried out in order to obtain remote sensing data. These images, mainly due to their resolution and timing, are one of the best remote sensing materials for analysing the dynamics of glaciers. However, in this case, the biggest problem is the range of the photographed area and the lack of cyclicality in repeating the survey. Examples include the following: (1) the Polish aerial photography of Admiralty Bay and King George Bay from 1979 [26]; (2) the Chilean aerial photography of Fildes Peninsula taken in 1983-1984 [27]; (3) the Polish UAV photogrammetry mission of Arctowski Station environment carried out in 2014/2015 [28]. 3. **KGIS project. ** In 1998, the Working Group of Geodesy and Geographic Information (WG-GGI) of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) started an initiative for the implementation of GIS for the King George Island. This project, named KGIS, was the most comprehensive topographic database for this region. All available maps, aerial photography, satellite images, and geodetic surveys were compiled into the geographical information system. The reference data were the SPOT satellite mosaic based on SPOT-3, -4 XS images from 1994, 1995, and 2000 with a spatial resolution of 20 m. KGIS was also used in the research on the dynamics of glaciers [27]. The availability of public satellite data for the analysed area is summarised in Table 1. Materials that were directly used for analysis are discussed in detail in the next chapter. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c} **0-10\%** \\ **(Scene Cloud Cover)** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
1979-1981 & 6 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1982-1984 & 0 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1985-1987 & 2 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1988-1990 & 0 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1991-1993 & 0 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1994-1996 & 0 & 0 & x & x & x \\
1997–1999 & 0 & 0 & x & x & x \\
2000–2002 & 17(L7) & 0 & 2 & 0 & x & x \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: The public archival satellite data available for ASPA-128, in the Australian summer months from 1978 to 2018, based on the USGS Earth Explorer: [[https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/](https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/)]([https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/](https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/)).