Periglacial (i.e. cold-climate) landscapes are known for their complex and small-scale patterns of surface types. Beyond geology, geomorphology, hydrology and vegetation, this complexity can be attributed to the presence of permafrost shortly below the surface, polygonal ground, and thermal degradation features. These parameters strongly influence the habitus of periglacial land surfaces and their strongly scale-dependent appearance in remotely sensed imagery. Specific geomorphological structures are often indicative for certain environmental conditions and thus are a valuable parameter for paleo-environmental reconstructions.
Our landscapes of interest comprise a typical assemblage of ice-rich permafrost plains, thermokarst and thermo-erosion features, fluvial and deltaic forms, low mountain ranges, and coastal forms. Remote sensing provides the most prospective tools for monitoring changes in these remote and vast arctic periglacial environments. Approaches include mapping of permafrost distribution and periglacial geomorphology, land-cover classification, change detection and terrain modeling. The incorporation of digital elevation models (DEM) into remote sensing analyses further enhances the quality of remotely sensed periglacial landscapes studies.


Projects:

- Comparative morphometrical analyses of periglacial properties on Mars and Earth by remote sensing and field investigations. In the frame of the German Helmholtz-Alliance “Planetary Evolution and Life” (Mathias Ulrich, PhD-student)