The Mackenzie River flows through a vast area of forest and tundra through the Northwest Territories from the Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. One of the lakes appears red most likely due to new ice which has formed in between image acquisitions.
Around 75% of the Mackenzie basin sits within a permafrost location.
The town of Inuvik lies along the east channel of the Mackenzie River delta, around 100 km from the Arctic Ocean and around 200 km north of the Arctic Circle. The hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk rests on the shores of the Arctic Ocean and is the only neighborhood in Canada on the Arctic Ocean that is connected to the rest of Canada by roadway.
Around 75% of the Mackenzie basin sits within a permafrost area. Permafrost, ground which remains completely frozen for at least 2 consecutive years, is typical in high latitude regions. With increasing temperature levels causing permafrost to thaw, it not only releases methane and carbon dioxide into the environment, but it can cause erosion, flooding, and landslides.
Satellite data can be used to map permafrost, even in inaccessible and remote areas such as the Mackenzie River delta. The maps, utilizing data from ESAs Climate Change Initiative, are the longest, satellite-derived permafrost record currently available.
Mackenzie River, Canada image integrating three radar acquisitions from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission. Credit: Contains customized Copernicus Sentinel data (2019-20), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
The Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission takes us over the Mackenzie River, a significant river system in the Canadian boreal forest. Its basin is the biggest in Canada and is the 2nd biggest drainage basin of any North American river, after the Mississippi.
The Mackenzie River streams through a huge area of forest and tundra through the Northwest Territories from the Great Slave Lake to the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean. Its delta covers an area of around 12,000 sq km, measuring more than 190 km from north to south, and is around 80 km broad along the Arctic shore. The maze of branching and intertwining channels is dotted with many lakes and ponds.
This wintery, radar image integrates three radar acquisitions from the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission to show modifications in land and water surface areas between three acquisition dates: November 18, 2019, December 5, 2019 and January 10, 2020. In the top of the image, parts of the frozen Arctic Ocean can be seen. The various colors are because of the movement and splitting of sea ice in between the acquisition dates.
The landscape imagined here is really normal for these latitudes, with the entire region subject to a severe winter climate. A lot of the lakes are frozen throughout the winter months, with the exception of some of the lakes noticeable in black in the center of the image, which are ice-free. Among the lakes appears red more than likely due to new ice which has actually formed in between image acquisitions.
