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Permafrost

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Remote Sensing of Ice and Snow

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Abstract

Permafrost is a very important condition of the Earth’s lithosphere. Permafrost is defined as any material that maintains a temperature below 0°C for at least 2 years. It underlies 20 to 25% of the land surface of the Earth and is also found off-shore in many polar areas (Fig. 6.1). In the northern hemisphere permafrost covers an estimated 2.3 x 106 km2 in area (Fujii and Higuchi, 1978). The occurrence of permafrost is either continuous, or discontinuous in which large masses of unfrozen ground may be interspersed with masses of permafrost.

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Authors
  1. Dorothy K. Hall
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  2. Jaroslav Martinec
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© 1985 Chapman and Hall Ltd. and J. Martinec

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Hall, D.K., Martinec, J. (1985). Permafrost. In: Remote Sensing of Ice and Snow. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4842-6_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4842-6_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-8647-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-4842-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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