ABoVE: Permafrost Active Layer Soil Properties, Northern Alaska, 2018

NASA's ABoVE dataset provides in situ soil measurements from five sites along the Dalton Highway in Northern Alaska. Measurements include soil dielectric properties, temperature, moisture profiles, active layer thickness, and soil organic matter, bulk density, porosity, texture, and coarse root biomass. Data were collected from August 22 to August 26, 2018, to support the Arctic and Boreal Vulnerability Experiment Airborne Campaign.

Use Cases

• Modeling active layer thickness based on in situ soil measurements.
• Analyzing relationships between soil dielectric properties and moisture/temperature profiles.
• Characterizing soil organic matter and texture across Arctic permafrost sites.
• Validating airborne remote sensing data for permafrost studies.

Strengths

• Measurements include multiple soil properties: dielectric, temperature, moisture, active layer thickness, organic matter, bulk density, porosity, texture, and root biomass.
• Data collected from five specific sites (Franklin Bluffs, Sagwon, Happy Valley, Ice Cut, Imnavait Creek) along a north-south transect.
• Temporal coverage is precisely defined as August 22-26, 2018.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to the five specific sites in Northern Alaska.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

In situ measurements collected from soil pits at selected sites.

Time Range

August 22-26, 2018

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 19:41:59.713084; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Five sites along the Dalton Highway in Northern Alaska: Franklin Bluffs, Sagwon, Happy Valley, Ice Cut, Imnavait Creek.