Airborne imaging spectroscopy surveys of Arctic and boreal Alaska and northwestern Canada 2017–2023
Since 2015, NASA's Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) has investigated how climate change impacts the vulnerability and/or resilience of the permafrost-affected ecosystems of Alaska and northwestern Canada. ABoVE conducted extensive surveys with the Next Generation Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS-NG) during 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2022 and with AVIRIS-3 in 2023 to characterize tundra, taiga, peatlands, and wetlands in unprecedented detail. The ABoVE AVIRIS dataset comprises ~1700 individual flight lines covering ~120,000 km<sup>2</sup> with nominal 5 m × 5 m spatial resolution. Data include individual transects to capture important gradients like the tundra-taiga ecotone and maps of up to 10,000 km<sup>2</sup> for key study areas like the Mackenzie Delta. The ABoVE AVIRIS surveys enable diverse ecosystem science, provide crucial benchmark data for validating retrievals from the PACE, PRISMA, and EnMAP satellite sensors and help prepare for the SBG and CHIME missions. This paper guides interested researchers to fully explore the ABoVE AVIRIS spectral imagery and complements our guide to the ABoVE airborne synthetic aperture radar surveys.
Authors
- Philip G. Brodrick (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9497-7661)
- S. J. Goetz (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6326-4308)
- Michael A. Bernas
- Philip A. Townsend (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7003-8774)
- David Ray Thompson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1100-7550)
- Uma S. Bhatt (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1056-3686)
- K. F. Huemmrich (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4148-9108)
- Michele Thornton (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6533-6328)
- S. Lundeen
- A Applejohn
- M. Ángeles Hernández (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3314-9878)
- Dedi Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1705-7823)
- Red Willow Coleman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6582-4922)
- Robert O. Green
- P. C. Griffith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4267-7429)
- Luis M Rios
- Daniel J. Hodkinson
- Hank A. Margolis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6535-9784)
- Kyle R. Kovach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1498-6363)
- Ryan Pavlick (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8772-3508)
- Brian Bue (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7856-3570)
- Clayton D. Elder (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9831-2106)
- Michael L. Eastwood (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2390-9041)
- Charles M. Sarture
- Peter R. Nelson (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5539-4914)
- Regina Eckert (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4571-7040)
- Latha Baskaran (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8487-3914)
- Isla H. Myers‐Smith (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8417-6112)
- Shawn Paul Serbin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4136-8971)
- Elizabeth Hoy (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0104-5118)
- Matthew J. Macander (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2808-208X)
- Charles E. Miller (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9380-4838)
- J. Chapman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-3602-4199)
- Alan Thorpe
- Debjani Singh
- Elizabeth Larson
- Michael J. Falkowski
- Ian B. McCubbin
- Winston Oslon-Duvall
Institutions
- Ames Research Center (US)
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory (US)
- Goddard Space Flight Center (US)
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory (US)
- University of Wisconsin–Madison (US)
- University of Alaska Fairbanks (US)
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Northern Arizona University (US)
- Canadian Polar Commission (CA)
- Schoodic Institute (US)
- Alaska Biological Research (United States) (US)
- Government of Northwest Territories (CA)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Scientific Data
- Published
- 2025-04-25
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04898-w
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Climate change and permafrost
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.30
Funders
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory