Toward the Detection of Permafrost Using Land-Surface Temperature Mapping

Abstract

Permafrost is degrading under current warming conditions, disrupting infrastructure, releasing carbon from soils, and altering seasonal water availability. Therefore, it is important to quantitatively map the change in the extent and depth of permafrost. We used satellite images of land-surface temperature to recognize and map the zero curtain, i.e., the isothermal period of ground temperature during seasonal freeze and thaw, as a precursor for delineating permafrost boundaries from remotely sensed thermal-infrared data. The phase transition of moisture in the ground allows the zero curtain to occur when near-surface soil moisture thaws or freezes, and also when ice-rich permafrost thaws or freezes. We propose that mapping the zero curtain is a precursor to mapping permafrost at shallow depths. We used ASTER and a MODIS-Aqua daily afternoon land-surface temperature (LST) timeseries to recognize the zero curtain at the 1-km scale as a “proof of concept.” Our regional mapping of the zero curtain over an area around the 7000 m high volcano Ojos del Salado in Chile suggests that the zero curtain can be mapped over arid regions of the world. It also indicates that surface heterogeneity, snow cover, and cloud cover can hinder the effectiveness of our approach. To be of practical use in many areas, it may be helpful to reduce the topographic and compositional heterogeneity in order to increase the LST accuracy. The necessary finer spatial resolution to reduce these problems is provided by ASTER (90 m).

Improving Permafrost Physics in a Distributed Cryosphere‐Hydrology Model and Its Evaluations at the Upper Yellow River Basin

“…Permafrost is ground with a temperature remaining at or below 0°C for at least two consecutive years (Biskaborn et al, 2019; Dobinski, 2011); it acts as a semi‐impermeable aquitard, restricting deep percolation (Walvoord & Kurylyk, 2016), increasing soil moisture (Vecellio et al, 2019), enhancing runoff (Woo et al, 2008), and decreasing groundwater volume (Niu et al, 2011). A special phenomenon in which soil temperature in the active layer is near 0°C for a long time is called the “zero curtain” (Outcalt et al, 1990), which can be used to distinguish permafrost from seasonally freezing ground (Batbaatar et al, 2020). Seasonally frozen ground is regarded as near‐surface soil that experiences freezing for more than 15 days each year (Cuo et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2003).…”

Trends in Satellite Earth Observation for Permafrost Related Analyses—A Review

“…Although thermal data is often included in the analysis of subsurface features (e.g., distribution of permafrost) as an additional proxy, few studies focus specifically on the potential of thermal imagery. Valuable insights through the exploitation of thermal sensors were already given by for example, Hachem et al [175] and Batbaatar et al [323]. Therefore, long-term thermal analyses might still hold unexplored potentials for future permafrost-related studies, especially by taking advantage of the temporal coverage and relatively high spatial resolution of Landsat thermal products.…”

“…While the majority of permafrost is distributed over the Northern Hemisphere and so are most of the research articles (94%), some authors also investigated permafrost related features and processes on the Southern Hemisphere (Figure 6). One of the geographical research hotspots are hereby the Andes with a focus on rock glacier kinematics and mountain permafrost distribution [60,61,[318][319][320][321][322][323] (Figure 6 key region 1). Moreover, the Antarctic features a noteworthy amount of permafrost related research.…”

“…However, by incorporating imagery from both Terra and Aqua LST in combination with temporal interpolation techniques, existing gaps could be filled [175]. The applicability of LST was further investigated in a recent study by Batbaatar et al [323] who mapped permafrost distribution in an area around the volcano Ojos del Salado in Chile. Batbaatar et al [323] used hereby ASTER and MODIS LST time-series data to map the so called "zero curtain", which descries a slowed phase transition from water to ice caused by latent heat release, in order to delineate permafrost boundaries.…”

“…The applicability of LST was further investigated in a recent study by Batbaatar et al [323] who mapped permafrost distribution in an area around the volcano Ojos del Salado in Chile. Batbaatar et al [323] used hereby ASTER and MODIS LST time-series data to map the so called "zero curtain", which descries a slowed phase transition from water to ice caused by latent heat release, in order to delineate permafrost boundaries. The authors promote the potential for this approach over arid regions, however similar to Hachem et al [175], snow cover, surface heterogeneity and cloud cover were identified to be limiting factors [323].…”