ALBERT

Description: The Enabling FAIR Data project has brought together a broad spectrum of Earth, space, and environmental science leaders to ensure that data are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

Description: Time series of a wide range of biogeophysical parameters from satellite data are available to date on a global scale. A few initiatives focus on their improvement and validation in high latitudes. For example the DUE Permafrost and STSE ALANIS-Methane, which are activities funded by the European Space Agency, focus on this issue. ALANIS Methane is a research project to produce and use a suite of relevant earth observation (EO) derived information to validate and improve one of the next generation land-surface models and thus reduce current uncertainties in wetland-related CH4 emissions. The task of the ESA DUE Permafrost project is to build up an Earth observation service for high-latitudinal permafrost applications. Results which are shown in this paper contribute to both. Microwave sensors are of special interest in this context due to their independence on cloud conditions and illumination of the Earth Surface. They can be used for derivation of land surface temperature, snow properties and land surface hydrology. The latter includes near surface soil moisture and inundation. Such parameters are of importance for studies on e.g. permafrost and land-atmosphere exchange. Datasets derived from active microwave instruments operating in C-band have been analysed with respect to their usability at high latitudes. Several examples from western Siberia are discussed.

Description: The ESA DUE Permafrost project (2009-2011) is developing a suite of parameters indicative of the subsurface phenomenon permafrost using satellite remote sensing: Land Surface Temperature (LST), Surface Soil Moisture (SSM), Surface Frozen and Thawed State (Freeze/Thaw), Terrain, Land Cover (LC), and Surface Water (SW). Snow parameters (Snow Extent and Snow Water Equivalent) are being developed through the DUE GlobSnow project, Global Snow Monitoring for Climate Research (2008-2011). The final DUE Permafrost remote sensing products cover the years 2007 to 2011 with a circumpolar coverage that will soon be released (early 2012), and then be used to analyze the temporal dynamics and map the spatial patterns of indicators. Further information is available at www.ipf.tuwien.ac.at/ permafrost. Since the beginning, scientific stakeholders and the International Permafrost Association (IPA) have been involved in the science and implementation plan. Interactive international user workshops took place in 2010 at the Technical University of Vienna, Vienna (AT), and in 2011 at the International Arctic Research Center (IARC), Fairbanks, Alaska (US). This involvement and the ongoing evaluation of the indicators derived from remote sensing for the high-latitude permafrost regions make the DUE Permafrost products trustworthy for the permafrost and the climate research community. The adaption of the remote sensing products for the permafrost and climate modelling is experimental and highly dependent on the users’ involvement. For a few years already, the Geophysical Institute Permafrost Laboratory (GIPL), University of Alaska Fairbanks, US, (http://www.gi.alaska.edu/research/snowicepermafrost/Permafrost) has successfully demonstrated the value of using LST derived from remote sensing data for driving its permafrost models. Further experimental testing of the DUE Permafrost products for use by the modeling community (permafrost and climate) will range from (i) the evaluation of external data of the models, with modifying or providing new external data (e.g. tundra land cover, surface water ratio, soil distribution), to (ii) new drivers for regional models derived from remote sensing (e.g., LST), to (iii) the evaluation of the output data from the models (e.g. spatial patterns of moisture and temperature).

Description: The task of the ESA DUE Permafrost project is to build up an Earth observation service for high-latitudinal permafrost applications with extensive involvement of the permafrost research community. The DUE Permafrost products derived from remote sensing are land surface temperature (LST), surface soil moisture (SSM), surface frozen and thawed state (freeze/ thaw), terrain, land cover, and surface waters. Weekly and monthly averages for most of the DUE Permafrost products will be made available for the years 2007-2010. The DUE Permafrost products are provided for the circumpolar permafrost area (north of 55°N) with 25 km spatial resolution. In addition, regional products with higher spatial resolution (300-1000 m/ pixel) were developed for five case study regions. These regions are: (1) the Laptev Sea and Eastern Siberian Sea Region (RU, continuous very cold permafrost/ tundra), (2) the Yakutsk Region (RU, continuous cold permafrost/ taiga), (3) the Western Siberian transect including Yamal Peninsula and Ob Region (RU, continuous to discontinuous/ taiga-tundra), (4) the Alaska Highway Transect (US, continuous to discontinuous/ taiga-tundra), and (5) the Mackenzie Delta and Valley Transect (CA, continuous to discontinuous/ taiga-tundra). The challenge of the programme is to adapt remote sensing products that are well established and tested in agricultural low and mid-latitudinal areas for highly heterogeneous taiga/ tundra permafrost landscapes in arctic regions. Ground data is essential for the evaluation of DUE Permafrost products and is provided by user groups and global networks. A major part of the DUE Permafrost core user group is contributing to GTN-P, the Global Terrestrial Network of Permafrost. Its main programmes, the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) and the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) have been thoroughly overhauled during the last International Polar Year (2007-2008). Their spatial coverage has been extended to provide a true circumpolar network. Ground data ranges from active layer- and snow depths, to air-, ground-, and borehole temperature data as well as soil moisture measurements and the description of landform and vegetation. The GTN-P sites, with their position in different permafrost zones in the DUE Permafrost case study regions, are highly suitable for the evaluation of DUE Permafrost remote sensing products. Air and surface temperatures with high-temporal resolution are available for three GTN-P sites in Siberia and compared to LST products. Daily average GTN-P borehole- and air temperature data for 22 sites in Alaska and 6 sites in Western Siberia were used to validate surface frozen and thawed state. The preliminary results are promising. In addition, landform and vegetation descriptions of circumpolar GTN-P sites are used for the evaluation of global ‘landcover’ remote-sensing datasets like GlobeCover, Landcover2000 and EcoClimap – global datasets used as input for climate modeling.

Description: Employing surface mapping of syntectonic sediments, interpretation of industry reflection-seismic profiles, gravity data, and isotopic age dating, we reconstruct the tectonic evolution of the southern Altiplano (∼20–22°S) between the cordilleras defining its margins. The southern Altiplano crust was deformed between the late Oligocene and the late Miocene with two main shortening stages in the Oligocene (33–27 Ma) and middle/late Miocene (19–8 Ma) that succeeded Eocene onset of shortening at the protoplateau margins. Shortening rates in the southern Altiplano ranged between 1 and 4.7 mm/yr with maximum rates in the late Miocene. Summing rates for the southern Altiplano and the Eastern Cordillera, we observe an increase from Eocene times to the late Oligocene to some 8 mm/yr, followed by fluctuation around this value during the Miocene prior to shutoff of deformation at 7–8 Ma and transfer of active shortening to the sub-Andean fold and thrust belt. Shortening inverted early Tertiary graben and half graben systems and was partitioned in three fault systems in the western, central, and eastern Altiplano, respectively. The east vergent fault systems of the western and central Altiplano were synchronously active with the west vergent Altiplano west flank fault system. From these data and from section balancing, we infer a kinematically linked western Altiplano thrust belt that accumulated a minimum of 65 km shortening. Evolution of this belt contrasts with the Eastern Cordillera, which reached peak shortening rates (8 mm/yr) in between the above two stages. Hence local shortening rates fluctuated across the plateau superimposed on a general trend of increasing bulk rate with no trend of lateral propagation. This observation is repeated at the shorter length and time scales of individual growth structures that show evidence for periods of enhanced local rates at a timescale of 1–3 Myr. We interpret this irregular pattern of deformation to reflect a plateau-style of shortening related to a self-organized state of a weak crust in the central South American back arc with a fault network that fluctuated around the critical state of mechanical failure. Tuning of this state may have occurred by changes in plate kinematics, during the Paleogene, initially reactivating crustal weak zones and by thermal weakening of the crust with active magmatism mainly in the Neogene stage.

Description: Die Zusammenarbeit der DGG mit dem FID GEO wird kurz beschrieben. Dabei geht es zum einen um die Digitalisierung älterer Jahrgänge der Zeitschrift für Geophysik und die damit verbundenen Urheberrechtsfragen, sowie zum anderen um Belange der Datenpublikation.

Description: conference

Description: DFG