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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2025-569</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>PolarLakes: A Bi-Weekly Dataset of Supraglacial Lakes on Antarctic Ice Shelves from Multi-Sensor Satellite Observations (2015&amp;ndash;2024)</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Baumhoer</surname>
<given-names>Celia A.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1339-2288</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Koehler</surname>
<given-names>Jonas</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6086-2364</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Wouters</surname>
<given-names>Bert</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Lhermitte</surname>
<given-names>Stef</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1622-0177</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Dietz</surname>
<given-names>Andreas J.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5733-7136</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Kuenzer</surname>
<given-names>Claudia</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>Land Surface Dynamics Department, German Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD), German Aerospace Center (DLR),  Wessling, D-82234, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Glaciology and Climate, Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), Copenhagen, DK-1350,  Denmark</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Department of Geoscience &amp; Remote Sensing, University of Technology, Delft, NL-2628, Netherlands</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth &amp; Environmental Sciences, Ku Leuven, Leuven, BE-3001, Belgium</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Institute for Geography and Geology, University of Wuerzburg, D-97074 Wuerzburg, Germany</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>12</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>24</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Celia A. Baumhoer et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2025-569/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2025-569/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2025-569/essd-2025-569.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2025-569/essd-2025-569.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Supraglacial lakes in Antarctica are key indicators of surface meltwater processes and play a significant role in ice shelf stability and ice sheet dynamics. Despite their importance, the understanding of their spatiotemporal dynamics remains limited due to their high variability and the lack of consistent, large-scale monitoring approaches. To date, no bi-weekly, pan-Antarctic dataset exists that captures supraglacial lake extent over recent years. To address this gap, we introduce the PolarLakes dataset, generated using a deep learning-based workflow that automates the detection and mapping of supraglacial lakes across Antarctic ice shelves. This method integrates Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and Sentinel-2 optical imagery to enhance spatial and temporal coverage while improving detection accuracy under challenging conditions such as cloud cover and surface refreezing. The resulting open-access dataset provides bi-weekly records of supraglacial lake extents at 10 meter spatial resolution from 2015 through 2024. It reveals extensive ponding in East Antarctica until a pan-Antarctic peak in lake area in 2020, followed by higher melt extents on the Antarctic Peninsula, culminating in a secondary peak on the Antarctic Peninsula in 2023. The PolarLakes dataset offers a valuable resource for investigating supraglacial hydrology and provides essential observational constraints for hydrological and ice sheet modeling. The PolarLakes dataset is available at DLR&amp;rsquo;s GeoService at &lt;a href=&quot;https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/datasets/polarlakes&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot; rel=&quot;noopener&quot;&gt;https://geoservice.dlr.de/web/datasets/polarlakes&lt;/a&gt;.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="24"/></counts>
<funding-group>
<award-group id="gs1">
<funding-source>Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt</funding-source>
<award-id>The Polar Monitor Project</award-id>
</award-group>
<award-group id="gs2">
<funding-source>European Space Agency</funding-source>
<award-id>Contract No. 4000141701/23/I-DT-bgh within the framework of the “Future EO-1 EO Science for Society Permanently Open Call”</award-id>
</award-group>
</funding-group>
</article-meta>
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