| Abstract: | The main purpose of the ESA Data User Element (DUE) Permafrost project (2009-2012) was to define, demonstrate, and validate a permafrost monitoring information service based on operational satellite data that are processed for the pan-permafrost region North of 55° N.
DUE PERMAFROST uses a suite of indicative remote sensing-derived parameters: 'Land Surface Temperature' (LST), 'Surface Soil Moisture' (SSM), 'Surface Frozen/Thawed State' (Freeze/Thaw), 'Elevation', 'Land Cover' (LC), and 'Surface Waters'. The remote sensing data products are provided from local to large spatial scales.
The DUE PERMAFROST consortium has been led by the Vienna University of Technology, Austria being responsible for all parameters based on microwave remote-sensing technology (active and passive microwave sensors): Surface Soil Moisture (SSM) with weekly to monthly averages from 2007 to 2010, Freeze/Thaw and Surface Waters.
The University of Waterloo (Canada) provided Land Surface Temperature Services (LST) from MODIS and ENVISAT-AATSR with weekly to monthly averages from 2000 to 2010 (varying by sensor and region).
The Friedrich Schiller University (Germany) is responsible for the circum-Arctic/ boreal Land Cover products including local high resolution information and burned areas.
Gamma Remote Sensing (GAMMA, Switzerland) assembled national DEM data-sets and build-up the first circum-arctic DEM dataset with a 100 m pixel resolution north of 55° N.
The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI, Germany) organized the exchange between the scientific stakeholders of the permafrost community and the project consortium, including the managing of the ground data used for the evaluation of products.
Researchers from permafrost monitoring and from modelling groups (permafrost, climate) provided expertise and ground data. The first DUE Permafrost User Workshop was held in May 2010 in Vienna as an official side-event of the EGU. The 2nd DUE Permafrost User Workshop has been financially supported by the International Arctic Research Centre, IARC, Fairbanks (US) and took place in March 2011 in Fairbanks, Alaska. The observation strategy for all products and regions was reviewed with the participants. The final DUE Permafrost User Workshop took place at AWI Potsdam (DE) in February 2012. The first version of the full dataset has been released in the beginning of 2011, the final version in March 2012.
The Full Product Set (FPS) published in PANGAEA covers dynamics of Land Surface temperature (weekly and monthly averages), Surface Soil Moisture (weekly and monthly averages including surface status), Surface Waters over five regions (summer maximum) at minimum for the time period 2007-2010. The Circum-Arctic Land Cover and Elevation are static products. The panarctic LST and SSM products are provided in geotiff and netcdf formats.
|
