Airborne Imagery Collections, Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska, 2013

The data here are orthomosaics, digital surface models (DSMs), and individual frames captured during low altitude airborne flights in 2013 at the Barrow Environmental Observatory. The orthomosaics, thermal IR mosaics, and DSMs were generated from the individual frames using Structure from Motion techniques. Data were collected to characterize the optical and thermal properties of the landscape and how they differ between two points in time with different vegetative and hydrologic conditions. The orthomosaic tiles, thermal IR mosaics, and DSMs are geotiffs in NAD 83 UTM Zone 4 named by their lower-left coordinate. Metadata for the raw imagery are contained in the .exif headers in the files for the optical imagery only. XYZ files contain the IR temperatures at various longitudes and latitudes. Supported by the U.S. DOE Arctic NGEE program and the Alaska Climate Science Center. The LiDAR dataset used for accuracy assessment was provided by Cathy Wilson([e-mail]) and Chandana Gangodagamage([e-mail]). File types included: *.tif; *.png; *.kmz; *.bmp; *.pgw, *xyz, *.jpg. The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska. Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).