780
November 2019
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
PHOTOGRAMMETRIC
ENGINEERING &
REMOTE SENSING
J
ournal
S
taff
Publisher ASPRS
Editor-In-Chief Alper Yilmaz
Assistant Editor Jie Shan
Assistant Director — Publications Rae Kelley
Electronic Publications Manager/Graphic Artist
Matthew Austin
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
is the official journal
of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing. It is
devoted to the exchange of ideas and information about the applications of
photogrammetry, remote sensing, and geographic information systems. The
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PE&RS.
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Lena Delta Shakes Off Winter
For most of the year, the Lena River Delta—a
vast wetland fanning out from northeast
Siberia into the Arctic Ocean—is either frozen
over and barren or thawed out and lush. Only
briefly will you see it like this.
After seven months encased in snow and ice,
the delta emerges for the short Arctic summer.
The transition happens fast. The animation
above, composed of images from the Mod-
erate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite, shows the
transformation from June 3-10, 2019.
At this time of year, relatively warm water flows northward from the Lena River;
this warms and awakens the delta. River ice melts, breaks up, and gets flushed out
of the Lena’s branching river channels. Snow and ice on the surface of the delta
also begin to melt.
In the animation, water flows more freely toward the ice-capped Laptev Sea, but
it still faces obstacles. Unable to penetrate the permafrost in the ground, and
blocked by ice remaining in the river channels, the meltwater produces a huge but
short-lived flood. The flood spreads across the delta and over the adjacent sea ice
in the Laptev Sea. Sea ice that is grounded–that is, attached to the seafloor–gets
submerged; non-grounded sea ice floats to the surface. As the sea ice near the
coast melts completely, dark blue seawater is exposed.
Green areas are likely the result of organic matter (debris from leaves, branches,
and peat) dissolved in the water. Siberian rivers tend to contain a high concentra-
tion of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM). The spring meltwater also carries
sediments that are sometimes deposited on the ice and adding color to the water.
The green color near the delta’s edge is especially visible in the first image above,
acquired June 4, 2019, by the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8. You can also
see relatively deep river channels traced by bands of bright ice that has broken
from the channel edges and floated up. This ice is slower to melt because it
absorbs less heat at its surface compared to flooded ice.
The second detailed image, also acquired June 4, shows the delta’s western side,
where the modern, active part of the delta meets the older, drier parts. Water
ponds in depressions in the ground formed from thawed permafrost. At the time of
the images, these “themokarst lakes” remained frozen, but the delta will take on a
completely different look soon.
References
Are, F. and Reimnitz, E. (2000) An Overview of the Lena River Delta Setting:
Geology, Tectonics, Geomorphology, and Hydrology.
Journal of Coastal
Research
, 16 (4), 1083-1093.
Eicken, H. et al. (1997) Sea-ice processes in the Laptev Sea and their importance
for sediment export.
Continental Shelf Research
, 17 (2), 205-233.
Nitze, I. and Grosse, G. (2016) Detection of landscape dynamics in the Arctic Lena
Delta with temporally dense Landsat time-series stacks.
Remote Sensing of
Environment
, 181 (2016), 27-41.
Reimnitz, E. (2000) Interactions of River Discharge with Sea Ice in Proximity of
Arctic Deltas: A Review.
Polarforschungt
, 70 (2000), 123-134.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using MODIS data from
NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and Landsat data from the U.S.
Geological Survey. Story by Kathryn Hansen with image interpretation by Ingmar
Nitze/Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research,
and Hajo Eicken/University of Alaska Fairbanks.
This image record originally appeared on the Earth Observatory.
