Description: Permafrost cannot be directly detected from space, but many surface features of permafrost terrains and typical periglacial landforms are observable with a variety of EO sensors ranging from very high to medium resolution at various wavelengths. In addition, landscape dynamics associated with permafrost changes and geophysical variables relevant for characterizing the state of permafrost, such as land surface temperature or freeze-thaw state can be observed with space-based Earth Observation. Suitable regions to examine environmental gradients across the Arctic have been defined in a community white paper (Bartsch et al. 2014). These transects have been revised and adjusted within the DUE GlobPermafrost initiative of the European Space Agency. The ESA DUE GlobPermafrost project develops, validates and implements Earth Observation (EO) products to support research communities and international organisations in their work on better understanding permafrost characteristics and dynamics. Prototype product cases will cover different aspects of permafrost by integrating in situ measurements of subsurface properties and surface properties, Earth Observation, and modelling to provide a better understanding of permafrost today. The project will extend local process and permafrost monitoring to broader spatial domains, support permafrost distribution modelling, and help to implement permafrost landscape and feature mapping in a GIS framework. It will also complement active layer and thermal observing networks. Both lowland (latitudinal) and mountain (altitudinal) permafrost issues are addressed. The status of the Permafrost Information System and first results will be presented. Prototypes of GlobPermafrost datasets include: - Modelled mean annual ground temperature by use of land surface temperature and snow water equivalent from satellites - Land surface characterization including shrub height, land cover and parameters related to surface roughness - Trends from Landsat Time series over selected transects - For selected sites: subsidence, ground fast lake ice, land surface features and rock glacier monitoring

Description: Permafrost cannot be directly detected from space, but many surface features of permafrost terrains and typical periglacial landforms are observable with a variety of EO sensors ranging from very high to medium resolution at various wavelengths. In addition, landscape dynamics associated with permafrost changes and geophysical variables relevant for characterizing the state of permafrost, such as land surface temperature or freeze-thaw state can be observed with spaceborne Earth Observation. Suitable regions to examine environmental gradients across the Arctic have been defined in a community white paper (Bartsch et al. 2014, hdl:10013/epic.45648.d001). These transects have been revised and adjusted within the DUE GlobPermafrost initiative of the European Space Agency. The ESA DUE GlobPermafrost project develops, validates and implements Earth Observation (EO) products to support research communities and international organisations in their work on better understanding permafrost characteristics and dynamics. Prototype product cases will cover different aspects of permafrost by integrating in situ measurements of subsurface and surface properties, Earth Observation, and modelling to provide a better understanding of permafrost today. The project will extend local process and permafrost monitoring to broader spatial domains, support permafrost distribution modelling, and help to implement permafrost landscape and feature mapping in a GIS framework. It will also complement active layer and thermal observing networks. Both lowland (latitudinal) and mountain (altitudinal) permafrost issues are addressed. The status of the Permafrost Information System and first results will be presented. Prototypes of GlobPermafrost datasets include: Modelled mean annual ground temperature by use of land surface temperature and snow water equivalent from satellites Land surface characterization including shrub height, land cover and parameters related to surface roughness Trends from Landsat time-series over selected transects For selected sites: subsidence, ground fast lake ice, land surface features and rock glacier monitoring

Description: Permafrost cannot be directly detected from space, but many surface features of permafrost terrains and typical periglacial landforms are observable with a variety of EO sensors ranging from very high to medium resolution at various wavelengths. In addition, landscape dynamics associated with permafrost changes and geophysical variables relevant for characterizing the state of permafrost, such as land surface temperature or freeze-thaw state can be observed with space-based Earth Observation. Suitable regions to examine environmental gradients across the Arctic have been defined in a community white paper (Bartsch et al. 2014). These transects have been updated within the ESA DUE GlobPermafrost project. The ESA DUE GlobPermafrost project develops, validates and implements Earth Observation (EO) products to support research communities and international organisations in their work on better understanding permafrost characteristics and dynamics. Prototype product cases will cover different aspects of permafrost by integrating in situ measurements of subsurface properties and surface properties, Earth Observation, and modelling to provide a better understanding of permafrost today. The project will extend local process and permafrost monitoring to broader spatial domains, support permafrost distribution modelling, and help to implement permafrost landscape and feature mapping in a GIS framework. It will also complement active layer and thermal observing networks. Both lowland (latitudinal) and mountain (altitudinal) permafrost issues are addressed. The selected transects and first results will be presented. This includes identified needs from the user requirements survey, a review of existing land surface products available for the Arctic as well as prototypes of GlobPermafrost datasets, and the permafrost information system through which they can be accessed.

Description: Permafrost is an important component of the Cryosphere, which is affected by rapid warming of the Arctic. The degradation and thaw of permafrost in vertical as well as lateral directions results in a reduction of permafrost in high latitudes and high altitudes. Since permafrost affects the ecosystem conditions of the about 23 million square kilometer large permafrost region, its loss has strong effects on hydrology, geomorphology, biogeochemistry, and biota. In addition, permafrost soils store about 1500 Gt of organic carbon, about twice the amount currently in the atmosphere and hence changes in permafrost will likely have impacts well beyond local scales. Remote sensing has become an essential tool for quantitatively detecting and monitoring changes in permafrost and associated landscapes. The European Space Agency (ESA) has supported permafrost-focused remote sensing activities in two recent projects, ESA DUE Permafrost (2009-2012) and the ESA GlobPermafrost (2016-2019; http://www.globpermafrost.info). The first ESA DUE Permafrost project with spatial overage of the Northern Hemisphere developed, validated and implemented Earth Observation to support research communities and international organizations in their work on better understanding permafrost characteristics and dynamics. Now, the GlobPermafrost project expands on this successful approach by including both polar hemispheres as well as mountain permafrost regions. Products in the new project will cover different aspects of permafrost by integrating in situ measurements of subsurface properties and surface properties, Earth Observation, and modelling. Currently, the GlobPermafrost team is creating prototype remote sensing derived datasets for defined product and user groups. Selected users will be able to access the usability and validity of the products and provide feedback back to the GlobPermafrost team. The feedback from the Users Groups will be integrated into optimized remote sensing products until they have achieved a final state. To bring the resulting data products closer to the permafrost user communities, the Permafrost Information System (PerSys) has been conceptualized as an Open Access geospatial data dissemination and visualization portal for Earth Observation, i.e. remote sensing derived datasets produced within the GlobPermafrost project. The prototype and final remote sensing products and their metadata will be visualized in the PerSys WebGIS, described and searchable via the PerSys Data Catalogue. The WebGIS visualization is managed via the AWI WebGIS Infrastructure maps@awi (http://maps.awi.de) relying on OGC-standardized Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) technologies for data display and visualization. The PerSys WebGIS projects allow visualisation of raster and vector products such as land cover classification, Landsat multispectral index trend datasets, lake and wetland extents, InSAR-based land surface deformation maps, rock glacier velocity fields, spatially distributed permafrost model outputs, and land surface temperature datasets. Each of these WebGIS projects is adapted to the spatial scale of the specific products, ranging from local to hemispherical coverage. The PerSys Data Catalogue will provide the metadata and the access to all mature-state and final-state GlobPermafrost products. PerSys can be accessed through the GlobPermafrost project webpage. PerSys is also a core component of the Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC), a geodata portal for permafrost launched within the framework of the ERC PETA-CARB project at the Alfred-Wegener-Institut Helmholtz Zentrum für Polar and Meeresforschung. The APGC framework features a range of permafrost-specific geospatial data projects, including PerSys, and will allow searching for project-specific geospatial data by tags, keywords, data type and format, licence type, or by location. PerSys will be launched within APGC in early 2017. In addition, the Open Access data library PANGAEA as a certified ICSU member will serve as permanent archive for the GlobPermafrost final products, providing permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for each dataset archived. The ESA DUE Permafrost final product data set is already published under DOI doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.780111. The final GlobPermafrost remote sensing products published in PANGAEA will remain visualised in the PerSys WebGIS and catalogued and made searchable and accessible via the PerSys Data Catalogue.

Description: Permafrost regions are highly sensitive to climate changes. The monitoring of key variables and identification of relevant-processes is of topmost importance in these environments. ESA DUE GlobPermafrost (www.globpermafrost.info) provides a remote sensing data service for permafrost research and applications. This service was extended by permafrost modelling (time series), implemented in the new ESA CCI+ Permafrost project (2018-2021). The service comprises of the generation of remote sensing products for various regions and spatial scales as well as the specific infrastructures for visualisation, dissemination and access to datasets - PerSys. PerSys is the ESA GlobPermafrost geospatial information service for publishing and visualisation of information and data products to the public. Data products are described and searchable in the PerSys data catalogue (apgc.awi.de), and data visualisation employs the AWI WebGIS-infrastructure maps@awi (http://maps.awi.de), a highly scalable data visualisation unit within the AWI data-workflow framework O2A, from Observation to Archive. maps@awi WebGIS technology supports the project-specific visualisation of raster and vector data products of any spatial resolution and remote sensing origin. This is a prerequisite for the visualisation of the wide range of GlobPermafrost remote sensing products like: Landsat multispectral index trends (Tasseled Cap Brightness, Greeness, Wetness; Normalized Vegetation Index NDVI), Arctic land cover (e.g. shrub height, vegetation composition), lake ice grounding, InSAR-based land surface deformation, rock glacier velocities and a spatially distributed permafrost model output with permafrost probability and ground temperature per pixel. We established several WebGIS projects for the adaption to products specific spatial scales. For example, the WebGIS ‘Arctic’ visualises the Circum-Artic products. Highly resolved data products for rock glacier movements are visualised on regional scales in the WebGIS projects ‘Alps’, ‘Andes’ or ‘Central Asia’. The PerSYS WebGIS also visualises the stations of the WMO GCOS ground monitoring networks of the permafrost community: the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost GTN-P managed by the International Permafrost Association IPA. The PerSYS WebGIS has been continuously adapted in close co-operation with user at user workshops and at conferences and the International Permafrost Association (IPA).

Description: GIS server and desktop GIS technologies support scientific work at all levels, from data collection and data processing to data management and data visualisation. Here we present how the development and publication of scalable WebGIS data services supports the ESA DUE Globpermafrost (2016-2018), and the ESA CCI+ Permafrost (2018-2021) projects, specifically in the interaction with the permafrost community. Within ESA DUE programs, user feedback is essential to improve the remote sensing products. This is why ESA GlobPermafrost had to focus on methods and infrastructure for data presentation, and established PerSYS (Permafrost Information System). PerSYS became the ESA GlobPermafrost geospatial information service for publishing and visualisation of information and data products to the public. Data products are described and searchable in the PerSYS Data Catalogue, a core component of the Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC), established within the framework of ERC PETA-CARB at AWI. All GlobPermafrost data products will be DOI-registered and archived in the data archive PANGAEA provided by AWI. The data visualisation employs AWI’s WebGIS-infrastructure maps@awi (http://maps.awi.de), a highly scalable data visualisation unit within AWI’s data workflow framework O2A (from Observation to Archive). GIS services have been created and designed using ArcGIS for Desktop (latest Version) and finally published as a Web Map Service (WMS), an internationally standardized format (Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC)), using ArcGIS for Server. The project-specific data WMS as well as a resolution-specific background map WMS are embedded into a GIS viewer application based on Leaflet, an open-source JavaScript library. The GIS viewer application was adapted to interlink all GlobPermafrost WebGIS projects, and especially to enable their direct accessibility via the GlobPermafrost Overview WebGIS. The PerSys WebGIS is accessible via the GlobPermafrost project webpage and linked to the respective product groups as well as to maps@awi. WebGIS technology within maps@awi supports the project-specific visualisation of raster and vector data products of diverse spatial resolutions and remote sensing sources. This is a prerequisite for the visualisation of the wide range of GlobPermafrost remote sensing products like: Landsat multispectral index trends (Tasseled Cap Brightness, Greeness, Wetness; Normalized Vegetation Index NDVI), Arctic land cover (e.g., shrub height, vegetation composition), lake ice grounding, InSAR-based land surface deformation, rock glacier velocities and a spatially distributed permafrost model output with permafrost probability and ground temperature per pixel. All WebGIS projects are adapted to the products’ specific spatial scales. For example, the WebGIS ‘Arctic’ visualises the Circum-Artic products. Higher spatial resolution products for rock glacier movements are visualised on regional scales in the WebGIS projects ‘Alps’, ‘Andes’ or ‘Central Asia’. The PerSYS WebGIS also visualises the locations of the WMO GCOS ground monitoring networks of the permafrost community: the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost GTN-P managed by the International Permafrost Association IPA. The PerSYS WebGIS has been presented on several User workshops and at conferences, and is being continuously adapted in close interaction with the IPA.

Description: Permafrost is an Essential Climate Variable (ECV) within the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS), which is characterized by subsurface temperatures and the depth of the seasonal thaw layer. Complementing ground-based monitoring networks, the Permafrost CCI project funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) 2018-2021 will establish Earth Observation (EO) based products for the permafrost ECV spanning the last two decades. Since ground temperature and thaw depth cannot be directly observed from space-borne sensors, we will ingest a variety of satellite and reanalysis data in a ground thermal model, which allows to quantitatively characterize the changing permafrost systems in Arctic and High-Mountain areas. As recently demonstrated for the Lena River Delta in Northern Siberia, the algorithm uses remotely sensed data sets of Land Surface Temperature (LST), Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) and landcover to drive the transient permafrost model CryoGrid 2, which yields ground temperature at various depths, in addition to thaw depth. For the circumpolar CCI product, we aim for a spatial resolution between 10 and 1km, but ensemble runs will be performed for each pixel to represent the subgrid variability of snow and land cover. The performance of the transient algorithm crucially depends on the correct representation of ground properties, in particular ice and organic contents. Therefore, the project will compile a new subsurface stratigraphy product which also holds great potential for improving Earth System Model results in permafrost environments. We report on simulation runs for various permafrost regions and characterize the accuracy and ability to reproduce trends against ground-based data. Finally, we evaluate the feasibility of future “permafrost reanalysis” products, exploiting the information content of various satellite products to deliver the best possible estimate for the permafrost thermal state over a range of spatial scales.

Description: ESA GlobPermafrost (www.globpermafrost.info) provides a remote sensing data service for permafrost research and applications. This service comprises data product generation for various regions and spatial scales as well as specific infrastructures for visualisation and access to datasets. PerSys is the open access geospatial information system for dissemination and visualisation of remote sensing data derived within the ESA GlobPermafrost project. The data products are visualised in the PerSys WebGIS and are described and searchable in the PerSys Data Catalogue. The PerSys Data Catalogue is a core component of the Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC), set up within ERC PETA-CARB at AWI1. The visualization employs the AWI WebGIS infrastructure maps@awi (http://maps.awi.de), relying on OGC-standardized Web Mapping/Feature Services (WMS, WFS). The WebGIS supports the project specific visualisation of raster and vector data products such as land cover, Landsat multispectral index trends, InSAR-based land surface deformations, rock glacier velocities, and permafrost model outputs. The WebGIS projects are adapted to the products specific spatial scales, e.g. the Arctic WebGIS visualizes Circum-Artic products as well as other large-scale data products. Rock-glacier data products of higher spatial resolution are visualised on regional scale in the WebGIS projects Alps, Andes and Central Asia. PerSys is accessible via the GlobPermafrost project webpage.

Description: The GlobPermafrost project focuses on the accessibility of remote sensing data. This comprises of data product generation as well as on specific infrastructure to give information on and access to data. Further information regarding project status and events are available from www.globpermafrost.info. An online user survey conducted within the project highlights that GIS software is applied by a great deal of the user community. Additionally, data preview was requested by the majority of the survey participants. The Permafrost Information System PerSys will be conceptualized as an open access geospatial data dissemination and visualization portal. PerSys will allow raster and vector products visualisation resulting from GlobPermafrost such as land cover classifications, Landsat/Sentinel Trend datasets, lake and wetland extents, InSAR-based land surface deformation maps, block glaciers’ velocity fields, spatial permafrost model outputs, LST datasets, and many more. The data will be published as WebGIS services relying on OGC-standardized Web Mapping Service (WMS) and Web Feature Service (WFS) technologies for data display and visualization. The technical WebGIS environment will be hosted at AWI where a geodata infrastructure has been implemented comprising of ArcGIS for Server 10.4, PostgreSQL 9.2 and a browser-driven data viewer unit based on Leaflet (http://leafletjs.com). Independently, we will provide an ‘Access - Restricted Data Dissemination Service’, which will be available to users for testing frequently updated versions of project datasets. In addition, the European Research Council (ERC) funded PETA-CARB project (http://www.awi.de/) developing the Arctic Permafrost Geospatial Centre (APGC) where PerSys will become a core project. The APGC Data Catalogue will contain all final products of GlobPermafrost and links to the derived permanent DOI-based ESA remote sensing products archived in PANGAEA data repository.