scholarly journals Assessing Hydrological Changes in Wetland Areas of the Arctic and Subarctic Based on Microwave Remote Sensing Data

Author(s):  
Andrey Nikolaevich Romanov ◽  
Ilya Vladimirovich Khvostov ◽  
Vasiliy Vladimirovich Tikhonov ◽  
Evgeniy Alexandrovich Sharkov

Specific emissivity features of swamps and wetlands of Western Siberia were studied for changing seasonal conditions with the use of daily data of satellite microwave sounding. The research technique involved the analysis of brightness temperatures of the underlying surface at the test sites. Variations in seasonal dynamics of brightness temperatures were mainly caused by different rates of seasonal freezing of the upper waterlogged layer of the underlying surface and dielectric characteristics of water containing natural media (water body, soil, vegetation). We analyzed long-term trends in seasonal and annual dynamics of brightness temperatures of the underlying surface and estimated hydrological changes in the Arctic and Subarctic. The findings open up new possibilities for using satellite data in the microwave range for studying natural seasonal dynamic processes and predicting hazardous hydrological phenomena.

Author(s):  
Andrey Romanov ◽  
◽  
Ilya Khvostov ◽  

For the test sites of the Aralo-Caspian region subjected to degradation and desertification, the seasonal dynamics of the brightness temperatures of the underlying surface, measured from the SMOS satellite (Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity), was studied. On the example of a polygon in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, the influence of changes in the phrenological phases of the ice cover on the microwave radiation of the underlying surface is noted. The regularities of microwave radiation of inland water bodies and the sandy-saline desert Aralkum, formed on the site of the dried bottom of the Aral Sea, have been studied.


2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ge Peng ◽  
Lei Shi ◽  
Steve T. Stegall ◽  
Jessica L. Matthews ◽  
Christopher W. Fairall

AbstractThe accuracy of cloud-screened 2-m air temperatures derived from the intersatellite-calibrated brightness temperatures based on the High Resolution Infrared Radiation Sounder (HIRS) measurements on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) series is evaluated by comparing HIRS air temperatures to 1-yr quality-controlled measurements collected during the Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic Ocean (SHEBA) project (October 1997–September 1998). The mean error between collocated HIRS and SHEBA 2-m air temperature is found to be on the order of 1°C, with a slight sensitivity to spatial and temporal radii for collocation. The HIRS temperatures capture well the temporal variability of SHEBA temperatures, with cross-correlation coefficients higher than 0.93, all significant at the 99.9% confidence level. More than 87% of SHEBA temperature variance can be explained by linear regression of collocated HIRS temperatures. The analysis found a strong dependency of mean temperature errors on cloud conditions observed during SHEBA, indicating that availability of an accurate cloud mask in the region is essential to further improve the quality of HIRS near-surface air temperature products. This evaluation establishes a baseline of accuracy of HIRS temperature retrievals, providing users with information on uncertainty sources and estimates. It is a first step toward development of a new long-term 2-m air temperature product in the Arctic that utilizes intersatellite-calibrated remote sensing data from the HIRS instrument.


2012 ◽  
Vol 69 (7) ◽  
pp. 1180-1193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary W. Brown ◽  
Kevin R. Arrigo

Abstract Brown, Z. W., and Arrigo, K. R. 2012. Contrasting trends in sea ice and primary production in the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 69: . Satellite remote sensing data were used to examine recent trends in sea-ice cover and net primary productivity (NPP) in the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean. In nearly all regions, diminished sea-ice cover significantly enhanced annual NPP, indicating that light-limitation predominates across the seasonally ice-covered waters of the northern hemisphere. However, long-term trends have not been uniform spatially. The seasonal ice pack of the Bering Sea has remained consistent over time, partially because of winter winds that have continued to carry frigid Arctic air southwards over the past six decades. Hence, apart from the “Arctic-like” Chirikov Basin (where sea-ice loss has driven a 30% increase in NPP), no secular trends are evident in Bering Sea NPP, which averaged 288 ± 26 Tg C year−1 over the satellite ocean colour record (1998–2009). Conversely, sea-ice cover in the Arctic Ocean has plummeted, extending the open-water growing season by 45 d in just 12 years, and promoting a 20% increase in NPP (range 441–585 Tg C year−1). Future sea-ice loss will likely stimulate additional NPP over the productive Bering Sea shelves, potentially reducing nutrient flux to the downstream western Arctic Ocean.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 1666-1678
Author(s):  
Mohammed H. Aljahdali ◽  
Mohamed Elhag

AbstractRabigh is a thriving coastal city located at the eastern bank of the Red Sea, Saudi Arabia. The city has suffered from shoreline destruction because of the invasive tidal action powered principally by the wind speed and direction over shallow waters. This study was carried out to calibrate the water column depth in the vicinity of Rabigh. Optical and microwave remote sensing data from the European Space Agency were collected over 2 years (2017–2018) along with the analog daily monitoring of tidal data collected from the marine station of Rabigh. Depth invariant index (DII) was implemented utilizing the optical data, while the Wind Field Estimation algorithm was implemented utilizing the microwave data. The findings of the current research emphasis on the oscillation behavior of the depth invariant mean values and the mean astronomical tides resulted in R2 of 0.75 and 0.79, respectively. Robust linear regression was established between the astronomical tide and the mean values of the normalized DII (R2 = 0.81). The findings also indicated that January had the strongest wind speed solidly correlated with the depth invariant values (R2 = 0.92). Therefore, decision-makers can depend on remote sensing data as an efficient tool to monitor natural phenomena and also to regulate human activities in fragile ecosystems.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 122
Author(s):  
Gerald Krebs ◽  
David Camhy ◽  
Dirk Muschalla

While ongoing climate change is well documented, the impacts exhibit a substantial variability, both in direction and magnitude, visible even at regional and local scales. However, the knowledge of regional impacts is crucial for the design of mitigation and adaptation measures, particularly when changes in the hydrological cycle are concerned. In this paper, we present hydro-meteorological trends based on observations from a hydrological research basin in Eastern Austria between 1979 and 2019. The analyzed variables include air temperature, precipitation, and catchment runoff. Additionally, the number of wet days, trends for catchment evapotranspiration, and computed potential evapotranspiration were derived. Long-term trends were computed using a non-parametric Mann–Kendall test. The analysis shows that while mean annual temperatures were decreasing and annual temperature minima remained constant, annual maxima were rising. Long-term trends indicate a shift of precipitation to the summer, with minor variations observed for the remaining seasons and at an annual scale. Observed precipitation intensities mainly increased in spring and summer between 1979 and 2019. Catchment actual evapotranspiration, computed based on catchment precipitation and outflow, showed no significant trend for the observed time period, while potential evapotranspiration rates based on remote sensing data increased between 1981 and 2019.


2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 4025-4041 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.-J. Kang ◽  
J.-M. Yoo ◽  
M.-J. Jeong ◽  
Y.-I. Won

Abstract. Uncertainties in the satellite-derived surface skin temperature (SST) data in the polar oceans during two periods (16–24 April and 15–23 September) 2003–2014 were investigated and the three data sets were intercompared as follows: MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Ice Surface Temperature (MODIS IST), the SST of the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder/Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A (AIRS/AMSU), and AIRS only. The AIRS only algorithm was developed in preparation for the degradation of the AMSU-A. MODIS IST was systematically warmer up to 1.65 K at the sea ice boundary and colder down to −2.04 K in the polar sea ice regions of both the Arctic and Antarctic than that of the AIRS/AMSU. This difference in the results could have been caused by the surface classification method. The spatial correlation coefficient of the AIRS only to the AIRS/AMSU (0.992–0.999) method was greater than that of the MODIS IST to the AIRS/AMSU (0.968–0.994). The SST of the AIRS only compared to that of the AIRS/AMSU had a bias of 0.168 K with a RMSE of 0.590 K over the Northern Hemisphere high latitudes and a bias of −0.109 K with a RMSE of 0.852 K over the Southern Hemisphere high latitudes. There was a systematic disagreement between the AIRS retrievals at the boundary of the sea ice, because the AIRS only algorithm utilized a less accurate GCM forecast over the seasonally varying frozen oceans than the microwave data. The three data sets (MODIS, AIRS/AMSU and AIRS only) showed significant warming rates (2.3 ± 1.7 ~ 2.8 ± 1.9 K decade−1) in the northern high regions (70–80° N) as expected from the ice-albedo feedback. The systematic temperature disagreement associated with surface type classification had an impact on the resulting temperature trends.


Author(s):  
D. Varade ◽  
O. Dikshit

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Snow cover characterization and estimation of snow geophysical parameters is a significant area of research in water resource management and surface hydrological processes. With advances in spaceborne remote sensing, much progress has been achieved in the qualitative and quantitative characterization of snow geophysical parameters. However, most of the methods available in the literature are based on the microwave backscatter response of snow. These methods are mostly based on the remote sensing data available from active microwave sensors. Moreover, in alpine terrains, such as in the Himalayas, due to the geometrical distortions, the missing data is significant in the active microwave remote sensing data. In this paper, we present a methodology utilizing the multispectral observations of Sentinel-2 satellite for the estimation of surface snow wetness. The proposed approach is based on the popular triangle method which is significantly utilized for the assessment of soil moisture. In this case, we develop a triangular feature space using the near infrared (NIR) reflectance and the normalized differenced snow index (NDSI). Based on the assumption that the NIR reflectance is linearly related to the liquid water content in the snow, we derive a physical relationship for the estimation of snow wetness. The modeled estimates of snow wetness from the proposed approach were compared with in-situ measurements of surface snow wetness. A high correlation determined by the coefficient of determination of 0.94 and an error of 0.535 was observed between the proposed estimates of snow wetness and in-situ measurements.</p>


2022 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Philipp Bernhard ◽  
Simon Zwieback ◽  
Nora Bergner ◽  
Irena Hajnsek

Abstract. Arctic ice-rich permafrost is becoming increasingly vulnerable to terrain-altering thermokarst, and among the most rapid and dramatic of these changes are retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs). They initiate when ice-rich soils are exposed and thaw, leading to the formation of a steep headwall which retreats during the summer months. The impacts and the distribution and scaling laws governing RTS changes within and between regions are unknown. Using TanDEM-X-derived digital elevation models, we estimated RTS volume and area changes over a 5-year time period from winter 2011/12 to winter 2016/17 and used for the first time probability density functions to describe their distributions. We found that over this time period all 1853 RTSs mobilized a combined volume of 17×106 m3 yr−1, corresponding to a volumetric change density of 77 m3 yr−1 km−2. Our remote sensing data reveal inter-regional differences in mobilized volumes, scaling laws, and terrain controls. The distributions of RTS area and volumetric change rates follow an inverse gamma function with a distinct peak and an exponential decrease for the largest RTSs. We found that the distributions in the high Arctic are shifted towards larger values than at other study sites We observed that the area-to-volume scaling was well described by a power law with an exponent of 1.15 across all study sites; however the individual sites had scaling exponents ranging from 1.05 to 1.37, indicating that regional characteristics need to be taken into account when estimating RTS volumetric changes from area changes. Among the terrain controls on RTS distributions that we examined, which included slope, adjacency to waterbodies, and aspect, the latter showed the greatest but regionally variable association with RTS occurrence. Accounting for the observed regional differences in volumetric change distributions, scaling relations, and terrain controls may enhance the modelling and monitoring of Arctic carbon, nutrient, and sediment cycles.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Favrichon ◽  
Carlos Jimenez ◽  
Catherine Prigent

Abstract. Microwave remote sensing can be used to monitor the time evolution of some key parameters over land, such as land surface temperature or surface water extent. Observations are made with instrument such as the Scanning Microwave Multichannel Radiometer (SMMR) before 1987, the Special Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) and the following Special Sensor Microwave Imager/Sounder (SSMIS) from 1987 and still operating, to the more recent Global Precipitation Mission Microwave Imager (GMI). As these instruments differ on some of their characteristics and use different calibration schemes, they need to be inter-calibrated before long time series products can be derived from the observations. Here an inter-calibration method is designed to remove major inconsistencies between the SMMR and other microwave radiometers for the 18 GHz and 37 GHz channels over continental surfaces. Because of a small overlap in observations and a ~6 h difference in overpassing times between SMMR and SSM/I, GMI was chosen as a reference despite the lack of a common observing period. The diurnal cycles from three years of GMI brightness temperatures are first calculated, and then used to evaluate SMMR differences. Based on a statistical analysis of the differences, a simple linear correction is implemented to calibrate SMMR on GMI. This correction is shown to also reduce the biases between SMMR and SSM/I, and can then be applied to SMMR observations to make them more coherent with existing data record of microwave brightness temperatures over continental surfaces.


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