News

Our adjunct faculty member, Prof. Masato Furuya has published a paper entitled “Post‐Wildfire Surface Deformation Near Batagay, Eastern Siberia, Detected by L‐Band and C‐Band InSAR” in JGR-Earth Surface. His paper was featured in EOS.

Wildfires are increasing not only in their frequency but also their severity around the world, and Siberian region is not an exception. Even worse, wildfires in the Arctic will promote permafrost degradation that can last for years, which are responsible for changing local topography and ecosystem and can further release the organic carbon stored in the frozen soil for millennia. However, because of their remote location, it has been uncertain how post-wildfire permafrost degradation was proceeding.Kazuki Yanagiya, a student at Graduate School of Science, and Masato Furuya clarified the detailed spatial and temporal evolution of ground subsidence associated with the 2014 wildfire in Batagay, Eastern Siberia, using the satellite radar images acquired by Japanese ALOS2 and European Sentinel-1.

https://eos.org/articles/wildfires-trigger-long-term-permafrost-thaw
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019JF005473