TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada

The timing of snowmelt is an important turning point in the seasonal cycle of small Arctic catchments. The TerraSAR-X (TSX) satellite mission is a synthetic aperture radar system (SAR) with high potential to measure the high spatiotemporal variability of snow cover extent (SCE) and fractional snow c...

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Published in:Remote Sensing
Main Authors: Stettner, Samuel, Lantuit, Hugues, Heim, Birgit, Eppler, Jayson, Roth, Achim, Bartsch, Annett, Rabus, Bernhard
Format: Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) 2018
Subjects:
Online Access:https://elib.dlr.de/121158/
https://elib.dlr.de/121158/1/remotesensing-10-01155.pdf
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155
id ftdlr:oai:elib.dlr.de:121158
record_format openpolar
spelling ftdlr:oai:elib.dlr.de:121158 2023-05-15T14:27:19+02:00 TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada Stettner, Samuel Lantuit, Hugues Heim, Birgit Eppler, Jayson Roth, Achim Bartsch, Annett Rabus, Bernhard 2018-07-21 application/pdf https://elib.dlr.de/121158/ https://elib.dlr.de/121158/1/remotesensing-10-01155.pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155 en eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI) https://elib.dlr.de/121158/1/remotesensing-10-01155.pdf Stettner, Samuel und Lantuit, Hugues und Heim, Birgit und Eppler, Jayson und Roth, Achim und Bartsch, Annett und Rabus, Bernhard (2018) TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada. Remote Sensing, 10 (7), Seiten 1-26. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). DOI:10.3390/rs10071155 <https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155> ISSN 2072-4292 cc_by CC-BY Landoberfläche Zeitschriftenbeitrag PeerReviewed 2018 ftdlr https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155 2020-02-02T23:56:45Z The timing of snowmelt is an important turning point in the seasonal cycle of small Arctic catchments. The TerraSAR-X (TSX) satellite mission is a synthetic aperture radar system (SAR) with high potential to measure the high spatiotemporal variability of snow cover extent (SCE) and fractional snow cover (FSC) on the small catchment scale. We investigate the performance of multipolarized and multi-pass TSX X-Band SAR data in monitoring SCE and FSC in small Arctic Tundra catchments of Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island) off the Yukon Coast in the Western Canadian Arctic. We applied a threshold based segmentation on ratio images between TSX images with wet snow and a dry snow reference, and tested the performance of two different thresholds. We quantitatively compared TSX- and Landsat 8-derived SCE maps using confusion matrices and analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of snowmelt from 2015 to 2017 using TSX, Landsat 8 and in situ time lapse data. Our data showed that the quality of SCE maps from TSX X-Band data is strongly influenced by polarization and to a lesser degree by incidence angle. VH polarized TSX data performed best in deriving SCE when compared to Landsat 8. TSX derived SCE maps from VH polarization detected late lying snow patches that were not detected by Landsat 8. Results of a local assessment of TSX FSC against the in situ data showed that TSX FSC accurately captured the temporal dynamics of different snow melt regimes that were related to topographic characteristics of the studied catchments. Both in situ and TSX FSC showed a longer snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of steep valleys and a shorter snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of upland terrain. Landsat 8 had fundamental data gaps during the snowmelt period in all 3 years due to cloud cover. The results also revealed that by choosing a positive threshold of 1 dB, detection of ice layers due to diurnal temperature variations resulted in a more accurate estimation of snow cover than a negative threshold that detects wet snow alone. We find that TSX X-Band data in VH polarization performs at a comparable quality to Landsat 8 in deriving SCE maps when a positive threshold is used. We conclude that TSX data polarization can be used to accurately monitor snowmelt events at high temporal and spatial resolution, overcoming limitations of Landsat 8, which due to cloud related data gaps generally only indicated the onset and end of snowmelt. Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Herschel Herschel Island Tundra Yukon German Aerospace Center: elib - DLR electronic library Arctic Canada Herschel Island ENVELOPE(-139.089,-139.089,69.583,69.583) Yukon Remote Sensing 10 7 1155
institution Open Polar
collection German Aerospace Center: elib - DLR electronic library
op_collection_id ftdlr
language English
topic Landoberfläche
spellingShingle Landoberfläche
Stettner, Samuel
Lantuit, Hugues
Heim, Birgit
Eppler, Jayson
Roth, Achim
Bartsch, Annett
Rabus, Bernhard
TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
topic_facet Landoberfläche
description The timing of snowmelt is an important turning point in the seasonal cycle of small Arctic catchments. The TerraSAR-X (TSX) satellite mission is a synthetic aperture radar system (SAR) with high potential to measure the high spatiotemporal variability of snow cover extent (SCE) and fractional snow cover (FSC) on the small catchment scale. We investigate the performance of multipolarized and multi-pass TSX X-Band SAR data in monitoring SCE and FSC in small Arctic Tundra catchments of Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island) off the Yukon Coast in the Western Canadian Arctic. We applied a threshold based segmentation on ratio images between TSX images with wet snow and a dry snow reference, and tested the performance of two different thresholds. We quantitatively compared TSX- and Landsat 8-derived SCE maps using confusion matrices and analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of snowmelt from 2015 to 2017 using TSX, Landsat 8 and in situ time lapse data. Our data showed that the quality of SCE maps from TSX X-Band data is strongly influenced by polarization and to a lesser degree by incidence angle. VH polarized TSX data performed best in deriving SCE when compared to Landsat 8. TSX derived SCE maps from VH polarization detected late lying snow patches that were not detected by Landsat 8. Results of a local assessment of TSX FSC against the in situ data showed that TSX FSC accurately captured the temporal dynamics of different snow melt regimes that were related to topographic characteristics of the studied catchments. Both in situ and TSX FSC showed a longer snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of steep valleys and a shorter snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of upland terrain. Landsat 8 had fundamental data gaps during the snowmelt period in all 3 years due to cloud cover. The results also revealed that by choosing a positive threshold of 1 dB, detection of ice layers due to diurnal temperature variations resulted in a more accurate estimation of snow cover than a negative threshold that detects wet snow alone. We find that TSX X-Band data in VH polarization performs at a comparable quality to Landsat 8 in deriving SCE maps when a positive threshold is used. We conclude that TSX data polarization can be used to accurately monitor snowmelt events at high temporal and spatial resolution, overcoming limitations of Landsat 8, which due to cloud related data gaps generally only indicated the onset and end of snowmelt.
format Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper
author Stettner, Samuel
Lantuit, Hugues
Heim, Birgit
Eppler, Jayson
Roth, Achim
Bartsch, Annett
Rabus, Bernhard
author_facet Stettner, Samuel
Lantuit, Hugues
Heim, Birgit
Eppler, Jayson
Roth, Achim
Bartsch, Annett
Rabus, Bernhard
author_sort Stettner, Samuel
title TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
title_short TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
title_full TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
title_fullStr TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
title_full_unstemmed TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada
title_sort terrasar-x time series fill a gap in spaceborne snowmelt monitoring of small arctic catchments - a case study on qikiqtaruk (herschel island), canada
publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
publishDate 2018
url https://elib.dlr.de/121158/
https://elib.dlr.de/121158/1/remotesensing-10-01155.pdf
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155
long_lat ENVELOPE(-139.089,-139.089,69.583,69.583)
geographic Arctic
Canada
Herschel Island
Yukon
geographic_facet Arctic
Canada
Herschel Island
Yukon
genre Arctic
Arctic
Herschel
Herschel Island
Tundra
Yukon
genre_facet Arctic
Arctic
Herschel
Herschel Island
Tundra
Yukon
op_relation https://elib.dlr.de/121158/1/remotesensing-10-01155.pdf
Stettner, Samuel und Lantuit, Hugues und Heim, Birgit und Eppler, Jayson und Roth, Achim und Bartsch, Annett und Rabus, Bernhard (2018) TerraSAR-X Time Series Fill a Gap in Spaceborne Snowmelt Monitoring of Small Arctic Catchments - A Case Study on Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada. Remote Sensing, 10 (7), Seiten 1-26. Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). DOI:10.3390/rs10071155 <https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155> ISSN 2072-4292
op_rights cc_by
op_rightsnorm CC-BY
op_doi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155
container_title Remote Sensing
container_volume 10
container_issue 7
container_start_page 1155
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