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  • Matters Arising
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Detecting long-term Arctic surface water changes

Nature Climate Change volume 13, pages 1191–1193 (2023)Cite this article

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Matters Arising to this article was published on 05 October 2023

The Original Article was published on 29 August 2022

arising from Elizabeth E. Webb et al. Nature Climate Change https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01455-w (2022)

Webb et al.1 reported surface water area changes across lake-rich regions in the Arctic over the past two decades (2000–2021) by examining trends in the superfine water index2 (SWI) calculated from 500 m Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery. They determined that while there was considerable variability in surface water change, the net change was negative, with 82% of regions underlain by permafrost showing a decrease1. In contrast, recent 30 m Landsat-based surface water analyses over Canada (2000–2019) show a net surface water increase in Canada’s Arctic regions3,4,5. The discrepancy is probably due to the spectral properties of the SWI alongside the coarse spatial resolution of the MODIS data used by Webb et al.1 to determine surface water trends.

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Fig. 1: Relationship between MODIS SWI and Landsat water cover at 500 m resolution.
Fig. 2: Annual per cent water cover.

Data availability

The analysis in this study relied on datasets available to the public from the following sources. Webb et al.1 surface water trends were from the Arctic Data Center (https://doi.org/10.18739/A2037V). Permafrost extents were from the Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground-Ice Conditions v.2 (https://doi.org/10.7265/skbg-kf16). Olthof and Rainville3 annual surface water extents were from https://open.canada.ca/data/en/dataset/62de5952-a5eb-4859-b086-22a8ba8024b8. Pickens et al.4 annual surface water extents were from https://www.glad.umd.edu/dataset/global-surface-water-dynamics. Fire perimeters were from the Canadian Forest Service, National Burned Area Composite (NBAC), Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre (https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/datamart/metadata/nbac). Background for Fig. S1 is ESRI World Imagery (https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=10df2279f9684e4a9f6a7f08febac2a9). MODIS 2000–2022 NDVI trends6 were obtained from M. J. Macander at Alaska Biological Research Inc. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Wildlife Research Centre, Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Ian Olthof

  2. Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation, Natural Resources Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Robert H. Fraser

  3. Northwest Territories Centre for Geomatics, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

    Jurjen van der Sluijs

  4. Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

    Hana Travers-Smith

Authors
  1. Ian Olthof
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  2. Robert H. Fraser
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  3. Jurjen van der Sluijs
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  4. Hana Travers-Smith
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Contributions

I.O. and R.H.F. devised the study and wrote the paper. I.O. performed the analyses. R.H.F. determined relevant drivers of apparent water change that would manifest in the SWI with supporting references. J.v.d.S. provided additional evidence of ongoing surface water changes in the Arctic based on field and other geospatial data and contributed to writing and editing of the final paper. H.T.-S. contributed to writing and editing the final paper.

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Correspondence to Ian Olthof.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Climate Change thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Source data

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Statistical source data.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data.

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Olthof, I., Fraser, R.H., van der Sluijs, J. et al. Detecting long-term Arctic surface water changes. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 1191–1193 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01836-9

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