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The Arctic region is warming at over twice the mean rate of the Northern Hemisphere and nearly four times faster than the globe since 1979. The local rate of warming is even higher in the European archipelago of Svalbard. This warming is transforming the terrestrial snow cover, which modulates surface energy exchanges with the atmosphere, accounts for most of the runoff in Arctic catchments and is also a transient reservoir of atmospherically deposited compounds, including pollutants. Improved observations, understanding and modelling of changes in Arctic snow cover are needed to anticipate the effects these changes will have on the Arctic climate, atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems and socioeconomic factors. Svalbard has been an international hub of polar research for many decades and benefits from a well-developed science infrastructure. Here, we present an agenda for the future of snow research in Svalbard, jointly developed by a multidisciplinary community of experts. We review recent trends in snow research, identify key knowledge gaps, prioritize future research efforts and recommend supportive actions to advance our knowledge of present and future snow conditions pertaining to glacier mass balance, permafrost, surface hydrology, terrestrial ecology, the cycling and fate of atmospheric contaminants, and remote sensing of snow cover. This perspective piece addresses issues relevant to the circumpolar North and could be used as a template for other national or international Arctic research plans.

Rain-on-snow (ROS) events are becoming an increasingly common feature of the wintertime climate Svalbard in the High Arctic due to a warming climate. Changes in the frequency, intensity, and spatial distribution of wintertime ROS events in Svalbard are important to understand and quantify due their wide-ranging impacts on the physical environment as well as on human activity. Due to the sparse nature of ground observations across Svalbard, tools for mapping and long-term monitoring of ROS events over large spatial areas are reliant on remote sensing, snow models and atmospheric reanalyses. However, different methods of identifying and measuring ROS events can often present different interpretations of ROS climatology. This study compares a recently published Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) based ROS dataset for Svalbard to ROS derived from two snow models and a reanalysis dataset for 2004-2020. Although the number of ROS events differs across the datasets, all datasets exhibit both similarities and differences in the geographical distribution of ROS across the largest island, Spitsbergen. Southern and western coastal areas experience ROS most frequently during the wintertime, with the early winter (November-December) experiencing overall most events compared to the spring (March-April). Moreover, we find that different temperature thresholds are required to obtain the best spatial agreement of ROS events in the model and reanalysis datasets with ground observations. The reanalysis dataset evaluated against ground observations was superior to the other datasets in terms of accuracy due to the assimilation of ground observations into the dataset. The SAR dataset consistently scored lowest in terms of its overall accuracy due to many more false detections, an issue which is most likely explained by the persistence of moisture in the snowpack following the end of a ROS event. Our study not only highlights some spatial differences in ROS frequency and trends but also how

We present a comprehensive review of the current status of remotely sensed and in situ sea ice, ocean, and land parameters acquired over the Arctic and Antarctic and identify current data gaps through comparison with the portfolio of products provided by Copernicus services. While we include several land parameters, the focus of our review is on the marine sector. The analysis is facilitated by the outputs of the KEPLER H2020 project. This project developed a road map for Copernicus to deliver an improved European capacity for monitoring and forecasting of the Polar Regions, including recommendations and lessons learnt, and the role citizen science can play in supporting Copernicus’ capabilities and giving users ownership in the system. In addition to summarising this information we also provide an assessment of future satellite missions (in particular the Copernicus Sentinel Expansion Missions), in terms of the potential enhancements they can provide for environmental monitoring and integration/assimilation into modelling/forecast products. We identify possible synergies between parameters obtained from different satellite missions to increase the information content and the robustness of specific data products considering the end-users requirements, in particular maritime safety. We analyse the potential of new variables and new techniques relevant for assimilation into simulations and forecasts of environmental conditions and changes in the Polar Regions at various spatial and temporal scales. This work concludes with several specific recommendations to the EU for improving the satellite-based monitoring of the Polar Regions.

The Arctic region is presently warming at over twice the mean rate of the northern hemisphere. The local rate of warming is even higher in the European archipelago of Svalbard (Rantanen et al., 2002). This warming is transforming the terrestrial snow cover, which modulates surface energy exchanges with the atmosphere, accounts for most of the runoff in Arctic catchments, and is also a transient reservoir of atmospherically-deposited compounds, including pollutants. Improved observations, understanding and modelling of changes in Arctic snow cover are therefore needed to anticipate the effects these changes will have on Arctic climate, atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems. Svalbard has been an international hub of polar research for many decades, and benefits from a well-developed science infrastructure. Here, we present an agenda for the future of snow research in Svalbard, jointly developed by a multidisciplinary community of experts. We review recent trends in snow research, identify key knowledge gaps, prioritise future research efforts, and recommend supportive actions to advance knowledge of present and future snow conditions pertaining to glacier mass balance, permafrost, surface hydrology, terrestrial ecology, the cycling and fate of atmospheric contaminants, and remote sensing of snow cover. This agenda addresses issues relevant to the circumpolar North and could be used as a template for other national or international Arctic research plans.

We present a comprehensive review of the current status of remotely sensed and in situ sea ice, ocean, and land parameters acquired over the Arctic and Antarctic and identify current data gaps through comparison with the portfolio of products provided by Copernicus services. While we include several land parameters, the focus of our review is on the marine sector. The analysis is facilitated by the outputs of the KEPLER H2020 project. This project developed a road map for Copernicus to deliver an improved European capacity for monitoring and forecasting of the Polar Regions, including recommendations and lessons learnt, and the role citizen science can play in supporting Copernicus’ capabilities and giving users ownership in the system. In addition to summarising this information we also provide an assessment of future satellite missions (in particular the Copernicus Sentinel Expansion Missions), in terms of the potential enhancements they can provide for environmental monitoring and integration/assimilation into modelling/forecast products. We identify possible synergies between parameters obtained from different satellite missions to increase the information content and the robustness of specific data products considering the end-users requirements, in particular maritime safety. We analyse the potential of new variables and new techniques relevant for assimilation into simulations and forecasts of environmental conditions and changes in the Polar Regions at various spatial and temporal scales. This work concludes with several specific recommendations to the EU for improving the satellite-based monitoring of the Polar Regions

We present a comprehensive review of the current status of remotely sensed and in situ sea ice, ocean, and land parameters acquired over the Arctic and Antarctic and identify current data gaps through comparison with the portfolio of products provided by Copernicus services. While we include several land parameters, the focus of our review is on the marine sector. The analysis is facilitated by the outputs of the KEPLER H2020 project. This project developed a road map for Copernicus to deliver an improved European capacity for monitoring and forecasting of the Polar Regions, including recommendations and lessons learnt, and the role citizen science can play in supporting Copernicus’ capabilities and giving users ownership in the system. In addition to summarising this information we also provide an assessment of future satellite missions (in particular the Copernicus Sentinel Expansion Missions), in terms of the potential enhancements they can provide for environmental monitoring and integration/assimilation into modelling/forecast products. We identify possible synergies between parameters obtained from different satellite missions to increase the information content and the robustness of specific data products considering the end-users requirements, in particular maritime safety. We analyse the potential of new variables and new techniques relevant for assimilation into simulations and forecasts of environmental conditions and changes in the Polar Regions at various spatial and temporal scales. This work concludes with several specific recommendations to the EU for improving the satellite-based monitoring of the Polar Regions.

Reliable and accurate mapping of snow cover are essential in applications such as water resource management, hazard forecasting, calibration and validation of hydrological models and climate impact assessments. Optical remote sensing has been utilized as a tool for snow cover monitoring over the last several decades. However, consistent long-term monitoring of snow cover can be challenging due to differences in spatial resolution and retrieval algorithms of the different generations of satellite-based sensors. Snow models represent a complementary tool to remote sensing for snow cover monitoring, being able to fill in temporal and spatial data gaps where a lack of observations exist. This study utilized three optical remote sensing datasets and two snow models with overlapping periods of data coverage to investigate the similarities and discrepancies in snow cover estimates over Nordenskiöld Land in central Svalbard. High-resolution Sentinel-2 observations were utilized to calibrate a 20-year MODIS snow cover dataset that was subsequently used to correct snow cover fraction estimates made by the lower resolution AVHRR instrument and snow model datasets. A consistent overestimation of snow cover fraction by the lower resolution datasets was found, as well as estimates of the first snow-free day (FSFD) that were, on average, 10–15 days later when compared with the baseline MODIS estimates. Correction of the AVHRR time series produced a significantly slower decadal change in the land-averaged FSFD, indicating that caution should be exercised when interpreting climate-related trends from earlier lower resolution observations. Substantial differences in the dynamic characteristics of snow cover in early autumn were also present between the remote sensing and snow model datasets, which need to be investigated separately. This work demonstrates that the consistency of earlier low spatial resolution snow cover datasets can be improved by using current-day higher resolution

Svalbard Integrated Arctic Earth Observing System (SIOS) is an international partnership of research institutions studying the environment and climate in and around Svalbard. SIOS is developing an efficient observing system, where researchers share technology, experience, and data, work together to close knowledge gaps, and decrease the environmental footprint of science. SIOS maintains and facilitates various scientific activities such as the State of the Environmental Science in Svalbard (SESS) report, international access to research infrastructure in Svalbard, Earth observation and remote sensing services, training courses for the Arctic science community, and open access to data. This perspective paper highlights the activities of SIOS Knowledge Centre, the central hub of SIOS, and the SIOS Remote Sensing Working Group (RSWG) in response to the unprecedented situation imposed by the global pandemic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) disease 2019 (COVID-19). The pandemic has affected Svalbard research in several ways. When Norway declared a nationwide lockdown to decrease the rate of spread of the COVID-19 in the community, even more strict measures were taken to protect the Svalbard community from the potential spread of the disease. Due to the lockdown, travel restrictions, and quarantine regulations declared by many nations, most physical meetings, training courses, conferences, and workshops worldwide were cancelled by the first week of March 2020. The resumption of physical scientific meetings is still uncertain in the foreseeable future. Additionally, field campaigns to polar regions, including Svalbard, were and remain severely affected. In response to this changing situation, SIOS initiated several operational activities suitable to mitigate the new challenges resulting from the pandemic. This article provides an extensive overview of SIOS's Earth observation (EO), remote sensing (RS) and other operational activities strengthened and developed in response to COVID

The main objectives of the WP3 are: 1) to identify the potential for retrieving additional variables from EO data linked to the state of the Polar Regions that are required for assimilation into models and forecasts of meteorological and environmental processes and their variations and 2) to assess the capabilities of future satellite missions (with special focus on the Copernicus Expansion Missions) for environmental monitoring and for providing data for integration/assimilation into modelling/forecast products, considering different In situ and airborne field measurement scenarios. To achieve these objectives we have prepared a comprehensive review of the current status of remotely sensed parameters acquired over Polar Regions and compared them with the products provided by the Copernicus service to identify current data gaps. Besides, an assessment of future satellite missions (in particular the HPCMs) has been performed, in terms of their benefit for environmental monitoring and their integration/assimilation in modelling/forecast products. We have also identified possible synergies between parameters obtained from different satellite missions to enhance the information content of specific data products considering the end-users requirements. Finally, we have identified the limitations of the currently assimilated variables as well as the potential of new variables that are relevant for assimilation into models for simulations and forecasts of conditions in the Polar Regions. Moreover, a concept for a move forward on data assimilation is presented

The synthesis on the visions of the evolution of the Copernicus service reports on ways to improve the description of the changing Arctic Regions in all existing and planned marine Copernicus Servicescapability. It is based on an inventory of polar-relevant variables (including Essential Climate Variables) that will be available in 2021 from Copernicus Services and related European databases. The inventory is made at a high level without going into technical specifications of the data products (resolution, accuracy, file formats are dis-regarded). The report attempts to draw priorities for improved completeness and internal consistency of Copernicus services for the Arctic. [...]