TY - JOUR A1 - Dvornikov, Yury A1 - Leibman, Marina A1 - Heim, Birgit A1 - Bartsch, Annett A1 - Herzschuh, Ulrike A1 - Skorospekhova, Tatiana A1 - Fedorova, Irina A1 - Khomutov, Artem A1 - Widhalm, Barbara A1 - Gubarkov, Anatoly A1 - Rößler, Sebastian T1 - Terrestrial CDOM in lakes of Yamal Peninsula BT - Connection to lake and lake catchment properties JF - Remote Sensing N2 - In this study, we analyze interactions in lake and lake catchment systems of a continuous permafrost area. We assessed colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM) absorption at 440 nm (a(440)(CDOM)) and absorption slope (S300-500) in lakes using field sampling and optical remote sensing data for an area of 350 km(2) in Central Yamal, Siberia. Applying a CDOM algorithm (ratio of green and red band reflectance) for two high spatial resolution multispectral GeoEye-1 and Worldview-2 satellite images, we were able to extrapolate the a()(CDOM) data from 18 lakes sampled in the field to 356 lakes in the study area (model R-2 = 0.79). Values of a(440)(CDOM) in 356 lakes varied from 0.48 to 8.35 m(-1) with a median of 1.43 m(-1). This a()(CDOM) dataset was used to relate lake CDOM to 17 lake and lake catchment parameters derived from optical and radar remote sensing data and from digital elevation model analysis in order to establish the parameters controlling CDOM in lakes on the Yamal Peninsula. Regression tree model and boosted regression tree analysis showed that the activity of cryogenic processes (thermocirques) in the lake shores and lake water level were the two most important controls, explaining 48.4% and 28.4% of lake CDOM, respectively (R-2 = 0.61). Activation of thermocirques led to a large input of terrestrial organic matter and sediments from catchments and thawed permafrost to lakes (n = 15, mean a(440)(CDOM) = 5.3 m(-1)). Large lakes on the floodplain with a connection to Mordy-Yakha River received more CDOM (n = 7, mean a(440)(CDOM) = 3.8 m(-1)) compared to lakes located on higher terraces. KW - CDOM KW - lakes KW - lake catchments KW - permafrost KW - Yamal KW - remote sensing data Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10020167 SN - 2072-4292 VL - 10 IS - 2 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stettner, Samuel A1 - Lantuit, Hugues A1 - Heim, Birgit A1 - Eppler, Jayson A1 - Roth, Achim A1 - Bartsch, Annett A1 - Rabus, Bernhard T1 - TerraSAR-X time series fill a gap in spaceborne snowmelt monitoring of small arctic catchments BT - a case study on qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island), Canada JF - Remote sensing N2 - The timing of snowmelt is an important turning point in the seasonal cycle of small Arctic catchments. The TerraSAR-X (TSX) satellite mission is a synthetic aperture radar system (SAR) with high potential to measure the high spatiotemporal variability of snow cover extent (SCE) and fractional snow cover (FSC) on the small catchment scale. We investigate the performance of multi-polarized and multi-pass TSX X-Band SAR data in monitoring SCE and FSC in small Arctic tundra catchments of Qikiqtaruk (Herschel Island) off the Yukon Coast in the Western Canadian Arctic. We applied a threshold based segmentation on ratio images between TSX images with wet snow and a dry snow reference, and tested the performance of two different thresholds. We quantitatively compared TSX- and Landsat 8-derived SCE maps using confusion matrices and analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamics of snowmelt from 2015 to 2017 using TSX, Landsat 8 and in situ time lapse data. Our data showed that the quality of SCE maps from TSX X-Band data is strongly influenced by polarization and to a lesser degree by incidence angle. VH polarized TSX data performed best in deriving SCE when compared to Landsat 8. TSX derived SCE maps from VH polarization detected late lying snow patches that were not detected by Landsat 8. Results of a local assessment of TSX FSC against the in situ data showed that TSX FSC accurately captured the temporal dynamics of different snow melt regimes that were related to topographic characteristics of the studied catchments. Both in situ and TSX FSC showed a longer snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of steep valleys and a shorter snowmelt period in a catchment with higher contributions of upland terrain. Landsat 8 had fundamental data gaps during the snowmelt period in all 3 years due to cloud cover. The results also revealed that by choosing a positive threshold of 1 dB, detection of ice layers due to diurnal temperature variations resulted in a more accurate estimation of snow cover than a negative threshold that detects wet snow alone. We find that TSX X-Band data in VH polarization performs at a comparable quality to Landsat 8 in deriving SCE maps when a positive threshold is used. We conclude that TSX data polarization can be used to accurately monitor snowmelt events at high temporal and spatial resolution, overcoming limitations of Landsat 8, which due to cloud related data gaps generally only indicated the onset and end of snowmelt. KW - Snow Cover Extent (SCE) KW - TerraSAR-X KW - Landsat KW - wet snow KW - small Arctic catchments KW - satellite time series Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10071155 SN - 2072-4292 VL - 10 IS - 7 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Walther, Sophia A1 - Guanter, Luis A1 - Heim, Birgit A1 - Jung, Martin A1 - Duveiller, Gregory A1 - Wolanin, Aleksandra A1 - Sachs, Torsten T1 - Assessing the dynamics of vegetation productivity in circumpolar regions with different satellite indicators of greenness and photosynthesis JF - Biogeosciences N2 - High-latitude treeless ecosystems represent spatially highly heterogeneous landscapes with small net carbon fluxes and a short growing season. Reliable observations and process understanding are critical for projections of the carbon balance of the climate-sensitive tundra. Space-borne remote sensing is the only tool to obtain spatially continuous and temporally resolved information on vegetation greenness and activity in remote circumpolar areas. However, confounding effects from persistent clouds, low sun elevation angles, numerous lakes, widespread surface inundation, and the sparseness of the vegetation render it highly challenging. Here, we conduct an extensive analysis of the timing of peak vegetation productivity as shown by satellite observations of complementary indicators of plant greenness and photosynthesis. We choose to focus on productivity during the peak of the growing season, as it importantly affects the total annual carbon uptake. The suite of indicators are as follows: (1) MODIS-based vegetation indices (VIs) as proxies for the fraction of incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) that is absorbed (fPAR), (2) VIs combined with estimates of PAR as a proxy of the total absorbed radiation (APAR), (3) sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) serving as a proxy for photosynthesis, (4) vegetation optical depth (VOD), indicative of total water content and (5) empirically upscaled modelled gross primary productivity (GPP). Averaged over the pan-Arctic we find a clear order of the annual peak as APAR <= GPP < SIF < VIs/VOD. SIF as an indicator of photosynthesis is maximised around the time of highest annual temperatures. The modelled GPP peaks at a similar time to APAR. The time lag of the annual peak between APAR and instantaneous SIF fluxes indicates that the SIF data do contain information on light-use efficiency of tundra vegetation, but further detailed studies are necessary to verify this. Delayed peak greenness compared to peak photosynthesis is consistently found across years and land-cover classes. A particularly late peak of the normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) in regions with very small seasonality in greenness and a high amount of lakes probably originates from artefacts. Given the very short growing season in circumpolar areas, the average time difference in maximum annual photosynthetic activity and greenness or growth of 3 to 25 days (depending on the data sets chosen) is important and needs to be considered when using satellite observations as drivers in vegetation models. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-6221-2018 SN - 1726-4170 SN - 1726-4189 VL - 15 IS - 20 SP - 6221 EP - 6256 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER -