Permafrost and Remote Sensing in Western Antarctic Peninsula

G. VIEIRA; C. MORA; P. PINA; L. BANDEIRA; J. CATALAO; J. MARTIN-HERRERA; M. CALVIÑO-CANCELA; C. SCHAEFER; J. BOCKHEIM; G. GOYANES; M. RAMOS

Frascati

Workshop; 4th DUE Permafrost User Workshop; 2014

The Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) is one of the Earth?s regions where warming has been largest since the 1950?s with consequences on glaciers, ice-shelves and sea ice. However, changes on the permafrost have been poorly documented. Vieira et al (2010) show that low altitude permafrost in the WAP is close to 0 ºC. Bockheim et al (2013) indicate that permafrost has warmed in the Palmer archipelago region, being absent at low altitude. Our team maintains a network of GTN-P and CALM-S observatories from Palmer to King George Island and conducts environmental monitoring. Data is used as ground truthing for a wider spatial analysis using remote sensing. Currently we are using SAR for snow-cover mapping, DInSAR for rockglacier deformation, high resolution optical imagery for land classification, hyperspectral imagery analysis, as well as ultra-high resolution surveying using UAVs. In this presentation we provide an overview of most recent findings and perpectives.