Articles | Volume 19, issue 9
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3571-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-19-3571-2025
Research article
 | 
09 Sep 2025
Research article |  | 09 Sep 2025

Retrieving frozen ground surface temperature under the snowpack in the Arctic permafrost area from SMOS observations

Juliette Ortet, Arnaud Mialon, Alain Royer, Mike Schwank, Manu Holmberg, Kimmo Rautiainen, Simone Bircher-Adrot, Andreas Colliander, Yann Kerr, and Alexandre Roy

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Cited articles

Aalto, J., Karjalainen, O., Hjort, J., and Luoto, M.: Statistical Forecasting of Current and Future Circum-Arctic Ground Temperatures and Active Layer Thickness, Geophys. Res. Lett., 45, 4889–4898, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL078007, 2018. a
Adams, W. and Lasenby, D.: The Roles of Snow, Lake Ice and Lake Water in the Distribution of Major Ions in the Ice Cover of a Lake, Ann. Glaciol., 7, 202–207, https://doi.org/10.3189/S0260305500006170, 1985. a, b
Aksoy, M. and Johnson, J. T.: A Study of SMOS RFI Over North America, IEEE Geosci. Remote S., 10, 515–519, https://doi.org/10.1109/LGRS.2012.2211993, 2013. a
Al Bitar, A., Mialon, A., Kerr, Y. H., Cabot, F., Richaume, P., Jacquette, E., Quesney, A., Mahmoodi, A., Tarot, S., Parrens, M., Al-Yaari, A., Pellarin, T., Rodriguez-Fernandez, N., and Wigneron, J.-P.: The global SMOS Level 3 daily soil moisture and brightness temperature maps, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 9, 293–315, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-9-293-2017, 2017. a
Ala-Aho, P., Autio, A., Bhattacharjee, J., Isokangas, E., Kujala, K., Marttila, H., Menberu, M., Meriö, L.-J., Postila, H., Rauhala, A., Ronkanen, A.-K., Rossi, P. M., Saari, M., Haghighi, A. T., and Kløve, B.: What Conditions Favor the Influence of Seasonally Frozen Ground on Hydrological Partitioning? A Systematic Review, Environ. Res. Lett., 16, 043008, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abe82c, 2021. a
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Short summary
We propose a new method to determine the ground surface temperature under the snowpack in the Arctic area from satellite observations. The obtained ground temperature time series were evaluated over 21 reference sites in Northern Alaska and compared with ground temperatures obtained with global models. The method is extremely promising for monitoring ground temperature below the snowpack and studying the spatio-temporal variability thanks to 15 years of observations over the whole Arctic area.
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