Circum-Arctic Permafrost and Ground Ice Distribution Map

1990s-era data provides a unified international depiction of permafrost and ground ice conditions across the Northern Hemisphere from 20°N to 90°N. The dataset, derived from a 1:10,000,000 paper map by Brown et al. (1997), estimates permafrost extent in percent area and ground ice abundance in the upper 20 meters by percent volume. It is maintained by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and includes subsea and relict permafrost locations.

Use Cases

• Modeling climate change impacts on Arctic infrastructure using permafrost extent and ground ice volume classes.
• Calibrating remote sensing algorithms for permafrost detection with the 12.5 km, 25 km, and 0.5 degree resolution gridded data.
• Analyzing historical subsea permafrost distribution for paleoclimate studies.
• Assessing regional variability in frozen ground conditions using the discontinuous, sporadic, and isolated permafrost boundaries.

Strengths

• Provides a standardized international baseline derived from a 1:10,000,000 scale source map (Brown et al. 1997).
• Offers multiple spatial resolutions (12.5 km, 25 km, 0.5 degree) and vector (Shapefile) and raster (EASE-Grid) formats for analysis.
• Covers a extensive circumpolar region (20°N to 90°N) and includes specialized features like subsea and relict permafrost.

Limitations

• Core data represents a historical snapshot from the 1990s and may not reflect current conditions.
• Exact row counts, file sizes, and a definitive license are not specified across the platforms.
• The original author and specific collection methodology details are not fully provided in the available metadata.

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Digitized and re-gridded from the original 1:10,000,000 paper map published by Brown et al. in 1997.

Time Range

1990s

Freshness

2026-03-13 04:37:50.291061

Geography

Northern Hemisphere (20°N to 90°N)