Permafrost: Earth Observation Applications: Introduction

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1 Polar Meeting 3 Permafrost: Earth Observation Applications: Introduction Mark Drinkwater CNES, Paris, May, 2013

2 Remote Sensing of Permafrost which Remote Sensing products? applicability to Permafrost landscapes? permafrost expert knowledge needed participation of users needed permafrost is a subsurface phenomenon ~ 30cm Ice rich Ice Wedge Ice rich Remote Sensing provides: indicators & Permafrost Roughly 100% Ice Permafrost bio/geo physical parameters used Roughly in 70% models Ice Roughly 70% Ice by volume Active Layer adaption of RS products (temperature, moisture, land cover, ) for permafrost landscapes needed? Courtesy DUE Permafrost validity for permafrost landscapes? by volume

3 Permafrost distribution Permafrost is soil that has remained below 0 o C (32 o F) for more than two years. It occurs in high-latitude or mountain areas where the summer warmth fails to penetrate the ground enough to thaw the soil. Such conditions prevail in roughly a quarter of the Earth's land surface, including Alaska, Canada and Siberia. The thickness of permafrost ranges from a few to many hundreds of metres, depending on local climate (after UNEP/GRID-Arendal)

Polar Permafrost Remote Sensing Satellite remote sensing is the key to detecting,

latitude regions Circumpolar view required at different scales combination of different

water cycles and greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, etc.

4 Polar Permafrost Remote Sensing Satellite remote sensing is the key to detecting, monitoring, and understanding spatial processes of permafrost change in remote high latitude regions Circumpolar view required at different scales combination of different products required Permafrost changes have broad reaching consequences for the carbon and water cycles and greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, etc. Land cover classification of the Lena Delta and its application for permafrost & upscaling methane emissions After Schneider et al. 2009

5 What information is required? Land Surface Temperature (LST) Surface soil moisture (SSM) & freeze thaw (F/T) Snow cover & Snow water equivalent (SWE) Vegetation state (LAI, NDVI) Surface water (ponds, lakes, rivers) Plus: Terrain (DEM), Land Cover change Permafrost terrain extremely dynamic = time series data needed

6 Data flavours High spatial res. optical: CORONA, Landsat, SPOT, GeoEye, QuickBird, IKONOS, ALOS PRISM, Rapid Eye, Landsat DCM?, Pleiades?, Sentinel 2? All weather (SAR): SeaSat, ERS 1/2, Envisat ASAR, ALOS PALSAR, TerraSAR X, Cosmo SkyMed?, Sentinel 1?, ALOS2? All weather (Scatt/PMW): SeaSat, ERS 1/2 Scat, NSCAT, QuikScat, MetOp, SMOS, MetOp SG? Coarse resolution, high temporal resolution circumpolar data: MODIS, MERIS, ATSR, NPP, Sentinel 3 OLCI+SLSTR? Experimental: hyperspectral data (e.g. Chris Proba, EO1 Hyperion, EnMAP?)

7 SMOS detection of Frost depth to complement ASCAT Surface State Flag and MODIS/ATSR Surface Temperatures ESA ELBARA instrument data at FMI, Sodankyla Finland Courtesy: FMI

CHRIS Proba/Corona/ Pleiades? Investigation of bathymetry of thermokarst lakes.

Mapping of periglacial features & investigation of coastal erosion dynamics by comparison with

Supervised classification of lake depths in the western Lena Delta using echo sounder data as

Fig: Soil map of a slope and basin association in a typical thaw depression (thermokarst) in the

8 CHRIS Proba/Corona/ Pleiades? Investigation of bathymetry of thermokarst lakes. Derivation of a soil maps based on satellite and field data. Mapping of periglacial features & investigation of coastal erosion dynamics by comparison with recent high res. imagery for change detection. Fig. Supervised classification of lake depths in the western Lena Delta using echo sounder data as training data (Schmitz 2007). Fig: Soil map of a slope and basin association in a typical thaw depression (thermokarst) in the western Lena Delta (Turakh study site) based on CHRIS-Proba data from June 05 (Grosse et al. 2006b). Fig: Coastal erosion rates on the shores of the Bykovsky Peninsula for the period (Lantuit et al. in prep.) and mapped periglacial features (Grosse et al. 2005).

Fostering EO data assimilation into Earth system

developing and integrating EO data products into

value for increasing methane emission estimates;

ASCAT) CH 4 concentration (SCIAMACHY) OUTPUT:

wetlands Frozen/saturated soils (ASCAT) JULES

onset/end (ASCAT) freeze onset (ASCAT) GlobCover,

9 Fostering EO data assimilation into Earth system models: methane emisions ALANIS Methane aims at developing and integrating EO data products into coupled landatmosphere models demonstrating their value for increasing methane emission estimates; regional wetland extent dynamics (SSM/I, AVHRR, ASCAT) CH 4 concentration (SCIAMACHY) OUTPUT: Forecasts CH 4 emissions from boreal Eurasian wetlands Frozen/saturated soils (ASCAT) JULES (Joint UK Land Environment Simulator) + snow melt onset/end (ASCAT) freeze onset (ASCAT) GlobCover, MERIS fapar, AATSR LST HadGEM 3 (Hadley Centre Global Environmental Model)

$Wetlands Fung et al JULES wetland fraction EO-derived$

10 Fostering EO assimilation into Earth system models: methane emisions Annual Global Methane Emissions Wetlands Fung et al JULES wetland fraction EO-derived wetland fraction Annual Global Methane Emissions All Sources

11 Polar Permafrost: Key Observation Sites

Soil frost from microwave data. Kimmo Rautiainen, Jouni Pulliainen, Juha Lemmetyinen, Jaakko Ikonen, Mika Aurela

Soil frost from microwave data Kimmo Rautiainen, Jouni Pulliainen, Juha Lemmetyinen, Jaakko Ikonen, Mika Aurela Why landscape freeze/thaw? Latitudinal variation in mean correlations (r) between annual