Detecting and Mapping Gas Emission Craters on the Yamal and Gydan Peninsulas, Western Siberia

• Published in: Geosciences
• Main Authors: Scott Zolkos, Greg Fiske, Tiffany Windholz, Gabriel Duran, Zhiqiang Yang, Vladimir Olenchenko, Alexey Faguet, Susan M. Natali
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021
• Subjects: permafrost; thermokarst; landscape change; remote sensing; ArcticDEM; Landsat; Geology; QE1-996.5; Ice; Thermokarst; Siberia
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences11010021; https://doaj.org/article/d02549c26aba47f1a2b74e6377f1bc51

Rapid climate warming at northern high latitudes is driving geomorphic changes across the permafrost zone. In the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas in western Siberia, subterranean accumulation of methane beneath or within ice-rich permafrost can create mounds at the land surface. Once over-pressurized by methane, these mounds can explode and eject frozen ground, forming a gas emission crater (GEC). While GECs pose a hazard to human populations and infrastructure, only a small number have been identified in the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas, where the regional distribution and frequency of GECs and other types of land surface change are relatively unconstrained. To understand the distribution of landscape change within 327,000 km 2 of the Yamal-Gydan region, we developed a semi-automated multivariate change detection algorithm using satellite-derived surface reflectance, elevation, and water extent in the Google Earth Engine cloud computing platform. We found that 5% of the landscape changed from 1984 to 2017. The algorithm detected all seven GECs reported in the scientific literature and three new GEC-like features, and further revealed that retrogressive thaw slumps were more abundant than GECs. Our methodology can be refined to detect and better understand diverse types of land surface change and potentially mitigate risks across the northern permafrost zone.