Circumpolar Permafrost Monitoring with Satellite Data: The ESA DUE Permafrost Project

The PERMAFROST project is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) Data User Element (DUE) program, which is a component of the Earth Observation Envelope Program (EOEP). Permafrost is an Essential Climate Variable (ECV). The objective of this project is to establish a monitoring system on local to pan-boreal/arctic scale based on satellite data. Within this project permafrost relevant EO products are assessed and eventually provided to users. The complexity of the phenomenon Permafrost requires the close cooperation with the scientific community working in this field covering e.g. climatology, geomorphology, botany and hydrology. This range in involved subjects is reflected in the multitude of EO products which are assessed, e.g., land surface temperature, land cover, soil moisture, disturbances, snow and terrain parameters.

The Permafrost Information System of the DUE Permafrost will comprise tools for integration of products from other relevant ESA projects such as GlobSnow and GlobCover. It will allow the derivation of value added products which are relevant to Permafrost distribution and active layer dynamics by synergistic use of the different satellite datasets.

The project team is lead by TU Wien and supported by the Alfred Wegener Institute of Polar and Marine Research (Potsdam, Germany), Institute of Geography, University of Waterloo (Canada), Institute of Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena (Germany) and Gamma Remote Sensing (Switzerland).