A new automated method enabling consistent satellite assessment of seasonal lake ice phenology at 5 km resolution was developed for all lake pixels (water coverage ≥ 90 %) in the Northern Hemisphere using 36.5 GHz H-polarized brightness temperature (Tb) observations from the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS and Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR-E/2) sensors. The lake ...

Thermokarst lakes and ponds are major elements of permafrost landscapes, occupying up to 40% of the land area in some Arctic regions. Shallow lakes freeze to the bed, thus preventing permafrost thaw underneath them and limiting the length of the period with greenhouse gas production in the unfrozen lake sediments. Radar remote sensing permits to distinguish lakes with bedfast ice due to the dif...

This paper provides a case study of a method to estimate the value of additional information, before its acquisition, to aid decision making in the face of uncertainty. The approach employs conditional simulation in a Monte Carlo framework to conduct a Bayesian assessment of the value of information in an explicitly spatial setting. This paper demonstrates the procedure as applied by a hypothet...

Boreal lakes can be ice covered for a substantial portion of the year at which time methane (CH4) can accumulate below ice. The amount of CH4 emitted at ice melt is partially determined by the interplay between CH4 production and CH4 oxidation, performed by methane-oxidizing bacteria (MOB). Yet the balance between oxidation and emission and the potential for CH4 oxidation in various lakes durin...

The Map Maker algorithm which converts survey data into geometric data with 2-dimensional Cartesian coordinates has been previously published. Analysis of the performance of this algorithm is continuing. The algorithm is suitable for generating 2D maps and it would be helpful to have this algorithm generalized to generate 3D and higher dimensional coordinates. The trigonometric approach of the ...

We report an in-depth survey of next-generation DNA sequencing of ciliate diversity and community structure in two permanently ice-covered McMurdo Dry Valley lakes during the austral summer and autumn (November 2007 and March 2008). We tested hypotheses on the relationship between species richness and environmental conditions including environmental extremes, nutrient status, and day length. On...

[1] The balance of thermokarst lakes with bedfastand floating-ice regimes across Arctic lowlands regulates heat storage, permafrost thaw, winter-water supply, and overwintering aquatic habitat. Using a time-series of late-winter synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to distinguish lake ice regimes in two regions of the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska from 2003–2011, we found that 18% o...