InSAR Svalbard Ground Motion Service: Observing Surface Displacements in the High Arctic

The InSAR Svalbard Ground Motion Service (GMS) provides open-access ground surface displacement maps and time series in the Svalbard archipelago, derived from spaceborne Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR). The results are generated using a Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) multi-temporal InSAR approach applied to Sentinel-1 imagery. They consist of seasonal products capturing surface displacements during the snow-free seasons from 2016 to 2024, and interannual products documenting long-term velocity trends between 2018 and 2024. The products cover five pilot study areas, including the main settlements, research stations and cultural heritage sites on Spitsbergen Island (Longyearbyen, Ny-Ålesund, Svea, Hornsund and Kapp Linné). Located within the continuous permafrost zone of Svalbard, the observations document seasonal and interannual ground surface displacements, offering insights into a wide range of periglacial processes such as active layer dynamics, permafrost thaw and slope movement. The InSAR Svalbard GMS establishes a foundation for operational geohazard assessment and interdisciplinary Arctic research on permafrost, ground dynamics and climate change. The current data package is the first open release of the pilot products. The dataset is distributed as CSV files in the Zenodo repository and can be viewed in a web-based 3D visualisation tool (WebGIS) (https://svalbard.insar.no). Financial support: The InSAR Svalbard Development Project (2023–2025) has been funded by the Norwegian Space Agency (NoSA) (Post 74) and the Geological Survey of Norway (NGU). Recent research on InSAR in Svalbard and its use for permafrost science and geohazard assessment have also been supported by the ESA CCI Permafrost project (4000123681/18/I-NB) and the Fram Centre PermaRICH project (Ministry of Climate and Environment, chap. 1747, post 70).