Characteristics of aufeis for the Chukotka region derived from Landsat images (2013-2019)

• Main Authors: Makarieva, Olga, Shikhov, Andrey, Ostashov, Andrey, Nesterova, Nataliia, Semakina, Anastassiya
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: PANGAEA 2020
• Subjects: Aster GDEM; aufeis; Aufeis area; Chukitka; Chukotka_area; Comment; DATE/TIME; ELEVATION; Historical Cadastre; Identification; Landsat; LATITUDE; LONGITUDE; LSAT; MULT; Multiple investigations; Reference/source; Remote sensing (Landsat); Russia; Chukotka
• Online Access: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.925430; https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.925430

Present-day aufeis dataset was created by Landsat-8 OLI images for the period 2013-2019. Each aufeis was delineated by satellite images as polygon. Cloud-free Landsat images are obtained immediately after snowmelt season, to detect the highest possible number of aufeis. Critical values of Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) were used for semi-automated aufeis detection. However, a detailed expert-based verification was performed after automated procedure, to distinguish snow-covered areas from aufeis and cross-reference historical and satellite-based data collections. According to Landsat data, the number of aufeis reaches 2758, with their total area about 1147.1 km². The difference between the Cadastre (1958) and the satellite-derived data may indicate significant changes of aufeis formation environments.