Bottom-fast ice delineation with PolSAR and InSAR techniques in the Mackenzie Delta region, Northwest Territories, Canada

Yue, Bing; Chamberland, Joseph; Mulvie, J.

doi:10.5589/m13-042

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…While initial studies on mapping ground-fast ice at high latitudes were undertaken with airborne measurements in the 1970s (Surdu et al, 2014), investigations based on satellite data were first enabled with the availability of C-Band ERS (European Remote Sensing satellite) data in the 1990s (e.g., Jeffries et al, 1994;Duguay et al, 2002). Studies have been published for the North Slope of Alaska (Wakabayashi et al, 1993;Jeffries et al, 1994;Arp et al, 2011Arp et al, , 2012Engram et al, 2013;Surdu et al, 2014;Arp et al, 2015), Seward peninsula in Alaska (Engram et al, 2013), Manitoba (Duguay et al, 2002) and the MacKenzie Delta (Hirose et al, 2008;Yue et al, 2013) in Canada. Furthermore, the application of X-and L-band measurements for the detection of ground-fast ice has also been demonstrated over the North Slope (Engram et al, 2013;Jones et al, 2013).…”

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confidence: 99%

Circumpolar Mapping of Ground-Fast Lake Ice

et al. 2017

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Shallow lakes are common across the entire Arctic. They play an important role as methane sources and wildlife habitats, and they are also associated with thermokarst processes which are characteristic of permafrost environments. Many lakes freeze to the ground along their rims and often over the entire extent during winter time. Knowledge on the spatial patterns of ground-fast and floating ice is important as it relates to methane release, talik formation and hydrological processes, but no circumpolar account of this phenomenon is currently available. Previous studies have shown that ground-fast ice can easily be detected using C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) backscatter intensity data acquired from satellites. A major challenge is that backscatter intensity varies across the satellite scenes due to incidence angle effects. Circumpolar application therefore requires the inclusion of incidence angle dependencies into the detection algorithm. An approach using ENVISAT ASAR Wide Swath data (approximately 120 m spatial resolution) has therefore been developed supported by bathymetric measurements for lakes in Siberia. This approach was then further applied across the entire Arctic for late winter 2008. Ground-fast ice fraction has been derived for (1) two million lake objects larger than 0.025 km 2 (post-processed GlobeLand30), (2) a 50 × 50 km grid and (3) within certain zones relevant for climate studies (permafrost type, last glacial maximum, Yedoma). Especially lakes smaller than approximately 0.1 km 2 may freeze completely to the ground. The proportion of ground-fast ice increases with increasing soil organic carbon content in the proximity of the lakes. This underlines the importance of such lakes for emission studies and the need to map the occurrence of ground-fast lake ice. Clusters of variable fractions of ground-fast ice occur especially in Yedoma regions of Eastern Siberia and Alaska. This reflects the nature of thaw lake dynamics. Analyses of lake depth measurements from several sites suggest that the used method yields the potential to utilize ground-fast lake ice information over larger areas with respect to landscape development, but results need to be treated with care, specifically for larger lakes and along river courses.

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confidence: 99%

Circumpolar Mapping of Ground-Fast Lake Ice

et al. 2017

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“…Both SAR and polarimetric SAR (PolSAR) have produced good results in detecting bottomfast ice if there is sufficient penetration of the radar signal into the ice. Hence, detection of bottomfast ice in previous studies has focused on marine environments with almost no salinity such as the Mackenzie Delta [14,27]. Note that a SAR amplitude-based approach may be prone to generating false positives when the floating ice presents a backscatter signal similar as that of bottomfast ice, such as in cases where the floating ice is very smooth, which results in substantial specular reflection and low backscatter [27].…”

Section: Remote Sensing Of Bottomfast Sea Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Mapping Arctic Bottomfast Sea Ice Using SAR Interferometry

et al. 2018

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Bottomfast sea ice is an integral part of many near-coastal Arctic ecosystems with implications for subsea permafrost, coastal stability and morphology. Bottomfast sea ice is also of great relevance to over-ice travel by coastal communities, industrial ice roads, and marine habitats. There are currently large uncertainties around where and how much bottomfast ice is present in the Arctic due to the lack of effective approaches for detecting bottomfast sea ice on large spatial scales. Here, we suggest a robust method capable of detecting bottomfast sea ice using spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry. This approach is used to discriminate between slowly deforming floating ice and completely stationary bottomfast ice based on the interferometric phase. We validate the approach over freshwater ice in the Mackenzie Delta, Canada, and over sea ice in the Colville Delta and Elson Lagoon, Alaska. For these areas, bottomfast ice, as interpreted from the interferometric phase, shows high correlation with local bathymetry and in-situ ice auger and ground penetrating radar measurements. The technique is further used to track the seasonal evolution of bottomfast ice in the Kasegaluk Lagoon, Alaska, by identifying freeze-up progression and areas of liquid water throughout winter.

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“…Study of individual yearly records indicates increased extents of floating ice in 1972 compared to 1975. The shothole-based bottomfast ice extents correlate well with recent field observations and remote sensing radar studies (cf., [11,38,40]). They are unique, however, in providing insights of conditions in the 1960-1970s (where most of the shothole bottomfast ice records date from), prior to any widespread study of its distribution or the advent of remote sensing detection.…”

Section: Bottomfast Icementioning

confidence: 99%

Seismic shothole drillers’ lithostratigraphic logs: Unearthing a wealth of regional geoscience information in northwestern Canada

Smith

2015

GeoResJ

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a b s t r a c tSeismic shothole drillers' logs, record the near-surface (avg. 18.6 m deep) lithostratigraphy encountered when drilling holes to place explosive charges. These records offer a largely unrecognized wealth of geoscience information in areas for which little may be otherwise known. Stored in the Basic Files archives of petroleum exploration and seismic acquisition companies, this study first convinced companies of the potential utility of this data, then recovered the hard copy and digitally scanned records (paper, fiche, microfilm) and rendered these into a digital database and GIS. The final database of 343,989 records provides the largest source of geoscience information of its kind in northwestern Canada, and in many cases contains unique and original records on a host of subjects including surficial-, bedrock-, and hydro-geology, permafrost, and geohazards. The drillers' log records have further been used to create geospatial models of drift, till, muskeg, massive ice and ground ice thicknesses, and continue to be applied to new avenues of research such as temporal variations of bottomfast ice extents in offshore shallow marine environments. Published in freely downloadable Geological Survey of Canada Open File reports and providing commonly used database and GIS file formats, this data rescue exercise preserves and greatly enhances what was becoming an increasingly discarded corporate data set of unrecognized potential. Crown

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Bottom-fast ice delineation with PolSAR and InSAR techniques in the Mackenzie Delta region, Northwest Territories, Canada

Cited by 8 publications

References 20 publications

Circumpolar Mapping of Ground-Fast Lake Ice

Circumpolar Mapping of Ground-Fast Lake Ice

Mapping Arctic Bottomfast Sea Ice Using SAR Interferometry

Seismic shothole drillers’ lithostratigraphic logs: Unearthing a wealth of regional geoscience information in northwestern Canada

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