This presentation was held at the DUE Permafrost 2014 workshop, 12th of Febuary 2014, Frascati, Italy
Workshop: climate-cryosphere.org/meetings/due-permafrost-2014
Iijima, Yoshihiro
Research Institute for Global Change, JAMSTEC, Yokosuka Japan
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Large increase in precipitation had continued since 2004 in the central Yakutia. Soil moisture during following years had been increased accompanying with thawing permafrost near the surface. The perennially waterlogged conditions exacerbated the boreal forest habitat, namely withered and dead trees widely extended in this region. The present study examined to extract permafrost and forest degradation due to the unexpected climate-driven damages, along with expansion of the wet surface area, using ALOS–PALSAR and AVNIR2 images taken during 2006 through 2009. Classification of water surface area by PALSAR images and boreal forest change by AVNIR2 images produced the multi-years change in forest due to waterlogged conditions. The analyses exhibited that water surface area expanded in alas lakes and along valleys in conjunction with change from forest to grassland well corresponding with the field observation results.
Keywords: Permafrost degradation, ecohydrology, boreal forest, thermokarst