Super-high-resolution aerial imagery datasets of permafrost landscapes in Alaska and northwestern Canada

Abstract. Permafrost landscapes across the Arctic are very susceptible to a warming climate and are currently experiencing rapid change. High-resolution remote sensing datasets present a valuable source of information to better analyze and quantify current permafrost landscape characteristics and impacts of climate change on the environment. In particular, aerial datasets can provide further understanding of permafrost landscapes in transition due to local and widespread thaw. We here present a new dataset of super-high-resolution digital orthophotos, photogrammetric point clouds, and digital surface models that we acquired over permafrost landscapes in northwestern Canada, northern, and western Alaska. The imagery was collected with the Modular Aerial Camera System (MACS) during aerial campaigns conducted by the Alfred Wegener Institute in the summers of 2018, 2019, and 2021. The MACS was specifically developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for operation under challenging light conditions in polar environments. It features cameras in the optical and the near-infrared wavelengths with up to 16 megapixels. We processed the images to four-band (blue – green – red – near-infrared) orthomosaics, digital surface models with spatial resolutions of 7 to 20 cm, and 3D point clouds with point densities up to 44 pts/m³. This super-high-resolution dataset provides opportunities for generating detailed training datasets of permafrost landform inventories, a baseline for change detection for thermokarst and thermo-erosion processes, and upscaling of field measurements to lower-resolution satellite observations. All three regional dataset collections, along with supporting data, are available via PANGAEA; the DOIs are listed in the Code and Data Availability Section.