NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Inuvialuit Settlement Region

Tags: climate change, hydrology, lake ice, sea ice, remote sensing, snow water equivalence

Objective(s): The main objectives are: 1. to fly a novel Ku- and L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system over snow covered tundra land, lakes and sea ice in winter to obtain unique radar observations of these environments; 2. to use collected field measurements acquired by ongoing field work by P. Marsh's (PI) group at Trail Valley Creek field site that characterize the variability of snow microstructure and create a data set for testing the airborne radar observations; and 3. evaluate the sensitivity of the SAR observations to SWE over land, lakes and sea ice.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 6137. The main objectives are: 1. to fly a novel Ku- and L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) system over snow covered tundra land, lakes and sea ice in winter to obtain unique radar observations of these environments; 2. to use collected field measurements acquired by ongoing field work by P. Marsh's (PI) group at Trail Valley Creek field site that characterize the variability of snow microstructure and create a data set for testing the airborne radar observations; and 3. evaluate the sensitivity of the SAR observations to SWE over land, lakes and sea ice. This project is at the leading edge of science knowledge. The methodology is straightforward since the project will execute survey flights only over three areas defined in the .kml file. The plan is to conduct aiborne surveys of Trail Valley Creek which is the most southern ROI in the kml file. THis will include a portion of the western Husky Lakes region. Finally, we will fly airborne surveys offshore from the Mackenzie River delta over the Beaufort sea. The aircraft will fly repeat passes to cover a the ROI at an altitude over land ranging from 500 m to 1500 m above ground level. Over the ocean the aircraft will fly at an altitude closer to the sea ice. Field-based surveys are expected to be conducted at the Trail Valley Creek site. Our airborne survey measurements are exclusively made aboard the Alfred Wegener Institute’s DC3 Polar 6 aircraft. There will be 4 instrument operators on board the aircraft along with two pilots and an engineer. The aircraft will be based at Inuvik (Mike Zubko) Airport (YEV) and during the period we plan to fly sorties to each of the two study regions - approximately 6 days of flying during the window. During the flights, different airborne survey systems will be activated. A high-resolution digital camera system will capture survey-grade image data of the flight. A scanning laser system (operating at eye-safe wavelengths) will provide detailed ground surface measurements of the snow and tall stand vegetation. A downward-pointing wideband radar will capture the location of lake and sea ice surface and bottom, and the snow surface position on top of the sea ice. A side-looking dual-frequency radar will be used to capture snow accumulation on land and on lake/sea ice. Finally, an electromagnetic induction survey system will capture sea ice thickness over ocean water. All these measurements are very low power and are non-harmful to humans, animals, and vegetation. This project is directly connected with the Arctic Snow project (license #5743: Improved measurements of Arctic snowfall using a novel interdisciplinary approach (A-Snow) - Atmospheric science component) that was conducted in 2024. This year, surveys are planned to coincide with the fieldwork that is being conducted in March. This enable us to leverage the measurements made by the team to analyse our airborne snow radar data sets. Therefore, we will be able to consult closely with our partners through WLU to support their communication plan to NWT stakeholders and community organizations. We will be more than happy to make an accessible presentation to community members through ARI/other community members as time allows. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: April 17 - April 30, 2025