Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data
Drained thermokarst lake basins accumulate significant amounts of soil organic carbon in the form of peat, which is of interest to understanding carbon cycling and climate change feedbacks associated with thermokarst in the Arctic. Remote sensing is a tool useful for understanding temporal and spati...
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2012
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:22fbd13b470f483581b26ee0030b1dfc 2023-05-15T15:03:35+02:00 Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data Prajna Regmi Guido Grosse Miriam C. Jones Benjamin M. Jones Katey Walter Anthony 2012-11-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3390/rs4123741 https://doaj.org/article/22fbd13b470f483581b26ee0030b1dfc EN eng MDPI AG http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/4/12/3741 https://doaj.org/toc/2072-4292 doi:10.3390/rs4123741 2072-4292 https://doaj.org/article/22fbd13b470f483581b26ee0030b1dfc Remote Sensing, Vol 4, Iss 12, Pp 3741-3765 (2012) thermokarst lake drained thermokarst lake basin X-band SAR arctic peatland succession permafrost land surface age determination Science Q article 2012 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3390/rs4123741 2022-12-31T11:26:41Z Drained thermokarst lake basins accumulate significant amounts of soil organic carbon in the form of peat, which is of interest to understanding carbon cycling and climate change feedbacks associated with thermokarst in the Arctic. Remote sensing is a tool useful for understanding temporal and spatial dynamics of drained basins. In this study, we tested the application of high-resolution X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data of the German TerraSAR-X satellite from the 2009 growing season (July–September) for characterizing drained thermokarst lake basins of various age in the ice-rich permafrost region of the northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. To enhance interpretation of patterns identified in X-band SAR for these basins, we also analyzed the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from a Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper image acquired on July 2009 and compared both X-band SAR and NDVI data with observations of basin age. We found significant logarithmic relationships between (a) TerraSAR-X backscatter and basin age from 0 to 10,000 years, (b) Landat-5 TM NDVI and basin age from 0 to 10,000 years, and (c) TerraSAR-X backscatter and basin age from 50 to 10,000 years. NDVI was a better indicator of basin age over a period of 0–10,000 years. However, TerraSAR-X data performed much better for discriminating radiocarbon-dated basins (50–10,000 years old). No clear relationships were found for either backscatter or NDVI and basin age from 0 to 50 years. We attribute the decreasing trend of backscatter and NDVI with increasing basin age to post-drainage changes in the basin surface. Such changes include succession in vegetation, soils, hydrology, and renewed permafrost aggradation, ground ice accumulation and localized frost heave. Results of this study show the potential application of X-band SAR data in combination with NDVI data to map long-term succession dynamics of drained thermokarst lake basins. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Seward Peninsula Thermokarst Alaska Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Remote Sensing 4 12 3741 3765 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
thermokarst lake drained thermokarst lake basin X-band SAR arctic peatland succession permafrost land surface age determination Science Q |
spellingShingle |
thermokarst lake drained thermokarst lake basin X-band SAR arctic peatland succession permafrost land surface age determination Science Q Prajna Regmi Guido Grosse Miriam C. Jones Benjamin M. Jones Katey Walter Anthony Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
topic_facet |
thermokarst lake drained thermokarst lake basin X-band SAR arctic peatland succession permafrost land surface age determination Science Q |
description |
Drained thermokarst lake basins accumulate significant amounts of soil organic carbon in the form of peat, which is of interest to understanding carbon cycling and climate change feedbacks associated with thermokarst in the Arctic. Remote sensing is a tool useful for understanding temporal and spatial dynamics of drained basins. In this study, we tested the application of high-resolution X-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data of the German TerraSAR-X satellite from the 2009 growing season (July–September) for characterizing drained thermokarst lake basins of various age in the ice-rich permafrost region of the northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska. To enhance interpretation of patterns identified in X-band SAR for these basins, we also analyzed the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) calculated from a Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper image acquired on July 2009 and compared both X-band SAR and NDVI data with observations of basin age. We found significant logarithmic relationships between (a) TerraSAR-X backscatter and basin age from 0 to 10,000 years, (b) Landat-5 TM NDVI and basin age from 0 to 10,000 years, and (c) TerraSAR-X backscatter and basin age from 50 to 10,000 years. NDVI was a better indicator of basin age over a period of 0–10,000 years. However, TerraSAR-X data performed much better for discriminating radiocarbon-dated basins (50–10,000 years old). No clear relationships were found for either backscatter or NDVI and basin age from 0 to 50 years. We attribute the decreasing trend of backscatter and NDVI with increasing basin age to post-drainage changes in the basin surface. Such changes include succession in vegetation, soils, hydrology, and renewed permafrost aggradation, ground ice accumulation and localized frost heave. Results of this study show the potential application of X-band SAR data in combination with NDVI data to map long-term succession dynamics of drained thermokarst lake basins. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Prajna Regmi Guido Grosse Miriam C. Jones Benjamin M. Jones Katey Walter Anthony |
author_facet |
Prajna Regmi Guido Grosse Miriam C. Jones Benjamin M. Jones Katey Walter Anthony |
author_sort |
Prajna Regmi |
title |
Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
title_short |
Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
title_full |
Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
title_fullStr |
Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
title_full_unstemmed |
Characterizing Post-Drainage Succession in Thermokarst Lake Basins on the Seward Peninsula, Alaska with TerraSAR-X Backscatter and Landsat-based NDVI Data |
title_sort |
characterizing post-drainage succession in thermokarst lake basins on the seward peninsula, alaska with terrasar-x backscatter and landsat-based ndvi data |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs4123741 https://doaj.org/article/22fbd13b470f483581b26ee0030b1dfc |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Seward Peninsula Thermokarst Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Seward Peninsula Thermokarst Alaska |
op_source |
Remote Sensing, Vol 4, Iss 12, Pp 3741-3765 (2012) |
op_relation |
http://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/4/12/3741 https://doaj.org/toc/2072-4292 doi:10.3390/rs4123741 2072-4292 https://doaj.org/article/22fbd13b470f483581b26ee0030b1dfc |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs4123741 |
container_title |
Remote Sensing |
container_volume |
4 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
3741 |
op_container_end_page |
3765 |
_version_ |
1766335447378690048 |