Communicating remotely sensed pan-arctic permafrost land surface changes to non-specialist audiences with the Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX)

Climate change has led to an increase in permafrost warming and thaw at global scale. Land surface changes associated with permafrost thaw include the acceleration of Arctic coastal erosion, increased thaw slumping in ice-rich regions, the drainage and formation of lakes, as well as an intensification of other disturbances, such as forest and tundra fires and droughts. Thermo-erosion threatens infrastructure and leads to gullying, slumping, and even landslides. To detect and map such permafrost disturbances at high spatial resolution across large regions and to quantify land surface change, remote sensing analyses can be applied. In the ERC PETA-CARB, ESA CCI Permafrost, and NSF Permafrost Discovery Gateway projects, a pan-arctic 20-years time series of land surface disturbance trends was produced using Landsat TM, ETM+, and OLI imagery. The dataset presents a valuable source of information for Arctic communities, planners, stakeholders, and rights holders. Arctic communities living on frozen ground are increasingly forced to adapt their livelihoods to permafrost thaw. In some areas, the relocation of settlements has become the last resort and is already actively planned for several communities in Alaska.

To make the large landscape change dataset more easily accessible to non-specialist audiences, within the EU Arctic PASSION project, we designed a new web-based portal tailored towards such audiences and the sometimes limited internet bandwidths encountered in Arctic communities. The Arctic Landscape EXplorer (ALEX, https://alex.awi.de) was launched in early 2024 and provides interactive maps displaying recent information on land surface changes, hot spots of disturbances, and potential areas of active permafrost thaw and erosion. While focusing on the local to regional scale relevant for private users, regional, and state-level decision makers, exploring the data up to the pan-arctic scale may open new avenues for understanding permafrost change for the general public. A new release of ALEX in early 2025 will provide several new features. On the portal's home page, a new section will highlight selected locations in the Arctic with extraordinary land surface changes, accompanied by contextual information. On the map, users will be able to easily compare the change data with satellite imagery and other reference maps using a swipe and fade toolbox. Sharing specific map views will also be enabled. A second story map focusing on shore erosion explains geophysical processes and the role of permafrost.

Consultations with local representatives and stakeholders in Alaska, requests from members of governmental and tribal entities to reuse our data, and inquiries from research partners in the Arctic confirm that our transfer efforts have met real needs. This positive feedback encourages us to continue updating the tool beyond the end of the Arctic PASSION project.