Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland
Snow cover (SC) and timing of snowmelt are key regulators of a wide range of Arctic ecosystem functions. Both are strongly influenced by the amplified Arctic warming and essential variables to understand environmental changes and their dynamics. This study evaluates the potential of Sentinel-1 (S-1) s...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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Copernicus Publications
2022
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/625/2022/tc-16-625-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/article/61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 |
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:oai:doaj.org/article:61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 2023-05-15T14:56:42+02:00 Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland S. Buchelt K. Skov K. K. Rasmussen T. Ullmann 2022-02-01 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/625/2022/tc-16-625-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/article/61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 en eng Copernicus Publications doi:10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/625/2022/tc-16-625-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/article/61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 undefined The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 625-646 (2022) geo envir Journal Article https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_6501/ 2022 fttriple https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 2023-01-22T19:36:56Z Snow cover (SC) and timing of snowmelt are key regulators of a wide range of Arctic ecosystem functions. Both are strongly influenced by the amplified Arctic warming and essential variables to understand environmental changes and their dynamics. This study evaluates the potential of Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) time series for monitoring SC depletion and snowmelt with high spatiotemporal resolution to capture their understudied small-scale heterogeneity. We use 97 dual-polarized S-1 SAR images acquired over northeastern Greenland and 94 over southwestern Greenland in the interferometric wide swath mode from the years 2017 and 2018. Comparison of S-1 intensity against SC fraction maps derived from orthorectified terrestrial time-lapse imagery indicates that SAR backscatter can increase before a decrease in SC fraction is observed. Hence, the increase in backscatter is related to changing snowpack properties during the runoff phase as well as decreasing SC fraction. We here present a novel empirical approach based on the temporal evolution of the SAR signal to identify start of runoff (SOR), end of snow cover (EOS) and SC extent for each S-1 observation date during melt using backscatter thresholds as well as the derivative. Comparison of SC with orthorectified time-lapse imagery indicates that HV polarization outperforms HH when using a global threshold. The derivative avoids manual selection of thresholds and adapts to different environmental settings and seasonal conditions. With a global configuration (threshold: 4 dB; polarization: HV) as well as with the derivative, the overall accuracy of SC maps was in all cases above 75 % and in more than half of cases above 90 %. Based on the physical principle of SAR backscatter during snowmelt, our approach is expected to work well in other low-vegetation areas and, hence, could support large-scale SC monitoring at high spatiotemporal resolution (20 m, 6 d) with high accuracy. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Greenland The Cryosphere Zackenberg Unknown Arctic Greenland Kobbefjord ENVELOPE(-51.527,-51.527,64.177,64.177) The Cryosphere 16 2 625 646 |
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fttriple |
language |
English |
topic |
geo envir |
spellingShingle |
geo envir S. Buchelt K. Skov K. K. Rasmussen T. Ullmann Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
topic_facet |
geo envir |
description |
Snow cover (SC) and timing of snowmelt are key regulators of a wide range of Arctic ecosystem functions. Both are strongly influenced by the amplified Arctic warming and essential variables to understand environmental changes and their dynamics. This study evaluates the potential of Sentinel-1 (S-1) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) time series for monitoring SC depletion and snowmelt with high spatiotemporal resolution to capture their understudied small-scale heterogeneity. We use 97 dual-polarized S-1 SAR images acquired over northeastern Greenland and 94 over southwestern Greenland in the interferometric wide swath mode from the years 2017 and 2018. Comparison of S-1 intensity against SC fraction maps derived from orthorectified terrestrial time-lapse imagery indicates that SAR backscatter can increase before a decrease in SC fraction is observed. Hence, the increase in backscatter is related to changing snowpack properties during the runoff phase as well as decreasing SC fraction. We here present a novel empirical approach based on the temporal evolution of the SAR signal to identify start of runoff (SOR), end of snow cover (EOS) and SC extent for each S-1 observation date during melt using backscatter thresholds as well as the derivative. Comparison of SC with orthorectified time-lapse imagery indicates that HV polarization outperforms HH when using a global threshold. The derivative avoids manual selection of thresholds and adapts to different environmental settings and seasonal conditions. With a global configuration (threshold: 4 dB; polarization: HV) as well as with the derivative, the overall accuracy of SC maps was in all cases above 75 % and in more than half of cases above 90 %. Based on the physical principle of SAR backscatter during snowmelt, our approach is expected to work well in other low-vegetation areas and, hence, could support large-scale SC monitoring at high spatiotemporal resolution (20 m, 6 d) with high accuracy. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
S. Buchelt K. Skov K. K. Rasmussen T. Ullmann |
author_facet |
S. Buchelt K. Skov K. K. Rasmussen T. Ullmann |
author_sort |
S. Buchelt |
title |
Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
title_short |
Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
title_full |
Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
title_fullStr |
Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in Arctic periglacial environments: case study from Zackenberg and Kobbefjord, Greenland |
title_sort |
sentinel-1 time series for mapping snow cover depletion and timing of snowmelt in arctic periglacial environments: case study from zackenberg and kobbefjord, greenland |
publisher |
Copernicus Publications |
publishDate |
2022 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/625/2022/tc-16-625-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/article/61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-51.527,-51.527,64.177,64.177) |
geographic |
Arctic Greenland Kobbefjord |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Greenland Kobbefjord |
genre |
Arctic Greenland The Cryosphere Zackenberg |
genre_facet |
Arctic Greenland The Cryosphere Zackenberg |
op_source |
The Cryosphere, Vol 16, Pp 625-646 (2022) |
op_relation |
doi:10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 1994-0416 1994-0424 https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/16/625/2022/tc-16-625-2022.pdf https://doaj.org/article/61b33baab1094e4d9da970bd57c3da09 |
op_rights |
undefined |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-625-2022 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
2 |
container_start_page |
625 |
op_container_end_page |
646 |
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1766328778469933056 |