ABoVE: Soil Moisture and Active Layer Thickness in Alaska and NWT, Canada, 2008-2020

Alaska and the Northwest Territories, Canada, are covered by this dataset of 352,719 soil thaw depth and moisture observations. It includes 206,000 active layer thickness measurements and approximately 16,000 volumetric water content readings, collected by NASA-affiliated teams between June 2008 and August 2020.

Use Cases

• Modeling permafrost thaw dynamics based on active layer thickness measurements.
• Analyzing soil moisture variability in Arctic landscapes based on volumetric water content data.
• Validating remote sensing soil moisture products based on in-situ ground measurements.
• Studying seasonal thaw patterns based on measurements collected in August and September.

Strengths

• 352,719 total observations provide a substantial sample size.
• 206,000 active layer thickness measurements with technique breakdown (6.0% probing, 94.0% GPR).
• Approximately 16,000 volumetric water content measurements with instrument breakdown (GPR, Hydrosense, DualEM).
• Time range spans over 12 years, from 2008-06 22 to 2020-08-15.

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 and temporal bias inherent to measurements taken primarily in late summer.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Measurements collected by different research teams using mechanical probing, ground penetrating radar (GPR), Hydrosense probes, and DualEM instruments.

Time Range

2008-06-22 to 2020-08-15

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-12 19:47:09.022860; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Sites in Alaska, U.S., and the Northwest Territories, Canada.