Remote Sensing of Changing Northern High Latitude Ecosystems

Dear Colleagues,

Northern high-latitude terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented change in structure and function as a result of rapid climate warming. The response is manifest in myriad ways, including the melting of ice and the thawing of permafrost, an increase in the frequency and severity of wildfire, as well as through changes in vegetation productivity, lake abundance and cover, runoff patterns, lake and river ice thickness and cover duration, and snow cover. Such changes have substantially altered energy, water and biogeochemical cycling in the region, which has important global-scale consequences for climate and society.
Scientists need to understand the indicators of these changes, and use existing and new technologies and methodologies to observe and monitor them. Remote sensing offers repeat observations of dynamic land surface properties from local to regional scales over multi-decadal time periods. Therefore, the changes occurring in the northern high latitude ecosystems can be characterized and quantified using remote sensing techniques based on information from various active and passive sensors on ground-, airborne- and satellite- based platforms. Remote sensing can also play a critical role for scaling field measurements to landscape and regional scales, parameterizing and evaluating models, and testing hypothesis of dynamic landscape processes in these vulnerable ecosystems.
Recognizing the sensitivity, vulnerability and global importance of these changes, there is a growing interest in studying northern high latitude ecosystems. The goal is to better understand and quantify changes and provide both the modeling community and decision-makers the necessary information to improve climate prediction and inform the development of policies for a sustainable future. Several high-profile national and international research activities, currently underway or in the planning stage (e.g. NGEE-Arctic, DUE Permafrost, ABoVE), focus in part on observing and monitoring rapid change in northern high latitude ecosystems using remote sensing tools and techniques
The special issue seeks to invite contributions from studies that focus on understanding the dynamic landscape processes in northern high latitude ecosystems using remote sensing information from multi-scale platforms, i.e. ground based, aircraft and various satellite platforms. Contributions that demonstrate the development of new techniques, data products and/or highlight the challenges of remote sensing in high latitudes are also encouraged.

Dr. Santonu Goswami
Dr. Daniel J. Hayes
Dr. Guido Grosse
Mr. Benjamin Jones
Guest Editors

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