Remote Sensing of Permafrost Regions - Single View

In this module, we will focus on remote sensing of terrestrial regions of the Arctic that are not glaciated but affected by permafrost - about one quarter of the northern hemisphere landmass is part of the permafrost zone and thus a huge diversity of landforms, land cover, processes, and dynamics are encountered that are partially or fully driven by freezing and thawing processes on various spatial and temporal scales.

These regions are vast, far away, logistically challenging, and data-sparse - Remote sensing therefore often provides the tools of choice for many analyses needed to better understand how permafrost regions change in a rapdily warming Arctic and what the local to global feedbacks are.

Learn about Arctic Climate Change, Cryosphere, and Permafrost; Permafrost landscapes, disturbances, trends; Northern land cover and vegetation; Permafrost terrain and landforms; Thaw subsidence and frost heave; Permafrost coastal dynamics; and Thermokarst lake dynamics.

Learn to use cool data and techniques for characterizing and quantifying landscape dynamics in a rapidly changing Arctic: We will cover high resolution airborne data, high and medium resolution satellite imagery, LiDAR, Big Data approaches with Google Earth Engine, hyperspectral data, and an overview into many other methods.

Occasionally there may be polar bears or other fluffy animals showing up in the lecture materials and many permafrost-related things you probably have never seen before...

The module will consist of lectures, hands-on exercises in the PC pool, and work on a specific semester project you will be able to select at the beginning.

The module will heavily rely on latest research papers on remote sensing of permafrost regions. Detailed literature lists will be provided through moodle. Here some general literature examples on the topic:

Permafrost

• French, H. M. (2007) The Periglacial Environment, 3rd Edition, Wiley, ISBN: 978-0-470-86588-0, 478 pp.

Remote Sensing of Permafrost Regions

• Jorgenson MT, Grosse G (2016): Remote Sensing of Landscape Change in Permafrost Regions. Permafrost and Periglacial Processes, 27(4): 324-338. doi: 10.1002/ppp.1914.

• Westermann S, Duguay C, Grosse G, Kääb A (2015): Remote sensing of permafrost and frozen ground. In: Tedesco M (ed.): Remote sensing of the Cryosphere, pp. 307-344. Hoboken, NJ, Wiley Blackwell, 408 p., doi: 10.1002/9781118368909.ch13.

#01 Introduction to Remote Sensing and Permafrost (2019-10-17)

#02Permafrost Landscapes and Dynamics (2019-10-24)

#03Permafrost Terrain and Landform Characterization (2019-11-07)

#04Permafrost Landscape Land Cover and Vegetation (2019-11-14)

#05Big Data Approaches: Time Series Analysis, Machine Learning (2019-11-21)

#06Big Data Approaches: Google Earth Engine Tools (2019-11-28)

#07Remote Sensing of High Latitude Lakes and Lake Change (2019-12-05)

#08Observing Permafrost Coastal Dynamics (2019-12-12)

#09Hyperspectral Remote Sensing: Vegetation and Water Quality (2019-12-19)

#10Presentation Workshop (ZESSKO)2020-01-09#11Advanced remote sensing methods for permafrost (2020-01-16)

#12Presentation of remote sensing project results (at AWI) (2020-01-23)

#13Repetitorium (2020-01-30)

#14Written Exam (2020-02-06)

The module targets remote sensing enthusiasts with an interest in Polar Regions. Ideally, you are already aware of the importance of climate change in the Arctic and understand the importance of global-scale feedbacks in the Earth System, you like to play with different remote sensing approaches, and you enjoy working with images as well as bits and bytes.