Integrated Field and Synthetic Aperture Radar-Based Dataset for Arctic Lake Ice and Under-Ice Water Salinity Classification, Northern Alaska, 2024

This dataset provides a comprehensive, field-validated Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) dataset for Arctic lake ice classification, with a particular emphasis on under-ice water salinity. It includes in situ measurements from 104 lakes (132 measurement sites) across northern Alaska collected in May 2024, capturing data on lake ice thickness, snow depth, lake depth, and specific conductance of unfrozen water beneath the ice. These field observations are integrated with multi-season Sentinel-1 SAR imagery from early winter (January) to late winter (May), along with additional geospatial datasets such as Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IfSAR)-derived elevation models and summer ice-off timing. The dataset enables improved differentiation of bedfast and floating ice lakes, particularly identifying lakes with brackish to saline water that were previously misclassified as bedfast ice lakes using traditional SAR-based remote sensing approaches. This resource supports research in permafrost stability, Arctic hydrology, climate change impacts, and winter water resource availability. This work was supported by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation (OPP-2336164 and OPP-2336165) and the European Research Council project No. 951288 (Q-Arctic). Additional support was provided under a Broad Agency Announcement award from ERDC-CRREL, PE 0603119A.