The Potential of Earth Observation for the Analysis of Cold Region Land Surface Dynamics in Europe—A Review

Abstract

Abstract:Cold regions affect global, regional and local climate; oftentimes they are relevant for water supply, host valuable ecosystems, and support human livelihood. They are thus eminently important for human society. In the context of ongoing climate change, monitoring and understanding cold region land surface dynamics is essential for environmental scientists, stakeholders and decision makers. However, the definition of cold regions remains inexplicit, and no up-to-date cold region maps or overarching spatial analyses exist. For example, Europe has densely populated cold regions, but hardly an article exists that provides a solid overview of Earth Observation (EO) based applications assessing cold region land surface dynamics in Europe. With this review article we aim at closing this gap by providing an overview of EO-based techniques for cold region observation in Europe, focusing on the dynamics of glaciers and snow. We present a novel spatial delineation of cold regions for Europe before analyzing the benefits and limitations of different EO sensor types and data processing methods for EO based cold region research. Furthermore, we identify research gaps and discuss challenges for future studies.

Impacts of climate change on the hydrology of northern midlatitude cold regions

“…Cold regions are receiving increasing attention from the scientific community, the general public, as well as decision-makers due to their noticeably rapid response to ongoing climate change, which raises concerns about the integrity of ecosystems, the sustainability of water resources, and altered hydrological risks under climate change scenarios (Allen et al, 2014; Hu et al, 2017). From a hydrological point of view, cold regions represent parts of the world where snow and ice are present at least seasonally (Gelfan and Motovilov, 2009).…”

Observations and geophysical value-added datasets for cold high mountain and polar regions

“…Timely and accurate information on the elements that comprise the cryosphere, including snow, glaciers, permafrost, freshwater ice, sea ice, and solid precipitation, provide the data-evidenced support to the protection of these cold regions' fragile ecosystems and environment, facilitating the sustainable exploitation of environmental resources, providing driven data for hydrometeorological model, and supporting the safe use of infrastructure over land and ocean (Pulliainen et al, 2019;Guo et al, 2020). The availability of data and information thus helps with the achievement of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) (Hu et al, 2017;Qiu et al, 2016;Qiu et al, 2017;GEO, 2022).…”

Spatial Distribution of, and Variations in, Cold Regions in China from 1961 to 2019

“…They are an essential and lasting factor that affects the natural and social systems on the Earth's surface [4]. Cold regions are very sensitive to climate change [5], and climate change has changed the distribution of the cold regions around the world [6][7][8][9][10]. The sixth report of the IPCC pointed out that the global annual average surface temperature has risen by 1.09 • C in the past 100 years, that the climate warming trend in China was much higher than the global average [11,12], and that the area and spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of China's cold regions are undergoing significant changes.…”

“…For the classification of the cold regions in China, Yang et al [19] proposed climate indicators on the basis of the above studies. The indicators included: (1) The average temperature in the coldest month is below −3 • C; (2) The number of months with an average monthly temperature of above 10 • C is less than four; (3) The freezing period of rivers and lakes is more than 100 days, and more than 50% of the precipitation is solid precipitation; (4) The number of months with an average monthly temperature of >10 • C is no greater than five; (5) The average temperature in October and April is below 0 • C; (6) The annual average temperature does not exceed 5 • C; (7) The number of days with an average daily temperature of >10 • C is less than 150; (8) The accumulated temperature is 500-1000 • C; (9) The percentage of solid precipitation is greater than 30%; and (10) The average annual number of snow cover days is >30 days. They divided the cold regions in China on the basis of these 10 indicators [3].…”