Can C-band synthetic aperture radar be used to estimate soil organic carbon storage in tundra?

Bartsch, Annett; Widhalm, Barbara; Kuhry, Peter; Hugelius, Gustaf; Palmtag, Juri; Siewert, Matthias Benjamin

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5453-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5453-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in...

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-5453-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 19

Research article

|

30 Sep 2016

Research article |

| 30 Sep 2016

Can C-band synthetic aperture radar be used to estimate soil organic carbon storage in tundra?

Annett Bartsch, Barbara Widhalm, Peter Kuhry, Gustaf Hugelius, Juri Palmtag, and Matthias Benjamin Siewert

Data sets

Circumpolar dataset of Soil Organic Carbon north of treeline derived from ENVISAT ASAR GM, link to GeoTIFF A., Bartsch, B., Widhalm https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.864712

Short summary

A new approach for the estimation of soil organic carbon (SOC) pools north of the tree line has been developed based on synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the ENVISAT satellite. It can be shown that measurements of C-band SAR under frozen conditions represent vegetation and surface structure properties which relate to soil properties, specifically SOC. The approach provides the first spatially consistent account of soil organic carbon across the Arctic.