Northern Circumpolar Soils Map with Dominant Soil Characteristics

A circumpolar map at 1:10,000,000 scale details dominant soil characteristics across northern hemisphere regions including the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, northern Europe, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. The dataset, created using the Northern and Mid Latitude Soil Database, is structured as an ESRI Shapefile with 11 regional areas. Polygons contain attributes for the percentage area of specific soil types, covering categories like turbels, histosols, mollisols, and rocklands.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the spatial distribution of permafrost-affected soils like Turbels and Histels across the circumpolar region.
• Modeling soil-carbon interactions by identifying areas dominated by organic soils such as Histosols.
• Assessing land suitability by comparing proportions of agricultural soil types like Mollisols and Vertisols within map polygons.
• Studying cryosphere extent by identifying polygons classified as over 90 percent glaciers or rocklands.
• Regional environmental planning using the 11 partitioned shapefile areas for focused analysis.

Strengths

• The map provides detailed soil classification for 15+ specific soil types and non-soil categories like glaciers and rocklands.
• Data granularity includes polygon-level attributes showing the percentage area covered by each soil type.
• Cross-platform presence on NASA EarthData and Data.gov signals established credibility and importance for the research community.
• The 1:10,000,000 scale offers a consistent, standardized view for a vast circumpolar geographic scope.

Limitations

• Key technical specifications like row count, file size, and complete column list are unavailable across all sources.
• Conflicting license information exists, with one source specifying 'other-license-specified' and another listing 'None'.
• The dataset's creation date and the temporal coverage of the underlying soil database are not provided.

Provenance

Source

Northern and Mid Latitude Soil Database

Collection Method

Derived map created from a soil database, formatted as an ESRI Shapefile.

Time Range

null

Freshness

2026-03-12 23:10:39.932154

Geography

Circumpolar region covering the United States, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, northern Europe, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan.