Abstract
Abstract. Active layer thickness (ALT) is an important index to reflect the stability of permafrost. The retrieval of ALT based on Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology has been investigated recently in permafrost research. However, most of such studies are carried out in a limited extend and relatively short temporal coverage. The combination of temporal-spatial multi-layer soil moisture data and multi-temporal InSAR is a promising approach for the large-scale characterization of ALT. In this study, we employed Small Baseline Subset Interferometry (SBAS-InSAR) technology to obtain the seasonal surface deformation from radar images of Envisat and Sentinel-1 in a permafrost region of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP). We attempt to verify and calibrate the temporal-spatial multi-layer soil moisture product in combination with the in-situ data. Based on the land subsidence data and the temporal-spatial multi-layer soil moisture data, we further improve method to retrieve the ALT information. This paper describes the progress so far and point out the future work.
Highlights
Permafrost, as an important component of the cryosphere, is sensitive to climate change (Wu et al, 2002; Li et al, 2008; Gruber et al, 2012)
The active layer thickness (ALT) is an important index to reflect the stability of permafrost (Luo et al, 2014)
We report our progress on the efforts to employ SBAS-Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) technology to retrieve the seasonal surface deformation with the radar images of Envisat and Sentinel-1 and to verify and calibrate the multi-layer soil moisture product in combination with the in-situ data
Summary
Permafrost, as an important component of the cryosphere, is sensitive to climate change (Wu et al, 2002; Li et al, 2008; Gruber et al, 2012). In the context of global warming, temperature in QTP increased at a rate of 0.6 °C/10a over the period of 1980– 2007 (Wu et al, 2013). Permafrost on QTP has unique hydrothermal properties and is unstable (Wang et al, 2017). The complex geographical environment of QTP makes the permafrost more sensitive to global warming. The existing research results show that the ALT in the hinterland of QTP increases at an average rate of 3.6-7.5 cm/a (Wu et al, 2010; Li et al, 2012; Li et al, 2019). Due to the harsh environment of QTP, it is not suitable for large-scale field measurement, so it is more practical to monitor with longterm and large-area satellite remote sensing data, which gradually become an important information source for largescale frozen soil mapping (Zou et al, 2017; Ran et al, 2021). Many researchers have proposed various models to estimate ALT, such as empirical statistical model, hydrothermal coupling numerical model, and inversion model based on InSAR deformation data (Wang et al, 2009)
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