Excess ground ice formation and melt drive surface heave and settlement, and are critical components of the water balance in Arctic soils. Despite the importance of excess ice for the geomorphology, hydrology and biogeochemistry of permafrost landscapes, we lack fine-scale estimates of excess ice profiles. Here, we introduce a Bayesian inversion method based on remotely sensed subsidence. It retrieves near-surface excess ice profiles by probing the ice content at increasing depths as the thaw front deepens over summer. Ice profiles estimated from Sentinel-1 interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) subsidence observations at 80 m resolution were spatially associated with the surficial geology in two Alaskan regions. In most geological units, the estimated profiles were ice poor in the central and, to a lesser extent, the upper active layer. In a warm summer, units with ice-rich permafrost had elevated inferred ice contents at the base of the active layer and the (previous years’) upper permafrost. The posterior uncertainty and accuracy varied with depth. In simulations, they were best (<0.1) in the central active layer, deteriorating (>0.2) toward the surface and permafrost. At two sites in the Brooks Foothills, Alaska, the estimates compared favorably to coring-derived profiles down to 35 cm, while the increase in excess ice below the long-term active layer thickness of 40 cm was only reproduced in a warm year. Pan-Arctic InSAR observations enable novel observational constraints on the susceptibility of permafrost landscapes to terrain instability and on the controls, drivers and consequences of ground ice formation and loss.

We present a novel means of predicting systematic InSAR closure phases using an intensity triplet guided by the algebraic properties of the closure phase. This enables more accurate phase linking for estimating millimeter-scale ground motion.

Ionospheric Faraday rotation distorts satellite radar observations of the Earth's surface. While its impact on radiometric observables is well understood, the errors in repeat-pass InSAR observations and hence in deformation analysis are largely unknown. Because Faraday rotation cannot rigorously be compensated for in non-quad-pol systems, it is imperative to determine the magnitude and nature of the deformation errors. Focusing on distributed targets at L-band, we assess the errors for a range of land covers using airborne observations with simulated Faraday rotation. We find that the deformation error may reach 2 mm in the co-pol channels over a solar cycle. It can exceed 5 mm for intense solar maxima. The cross-pol channel is more susceptible to severe errors. We identify the leakage of polarimetric phase contributions into the interferometric phase as a dominant error source. The polarimetric scattering characteristics induce a systematic dependence of the Faraday-induced deformation errors on land cover and topography. Also their temporal characteristics, with pronounced seasonal and quasi-decadal variability, predispose these systematic errors to be misinterpreted as deformation. While the relatively small magnitude of 1-2 mm is of limited concern in many applications, the persistence on semi- to multi-annual time scales compels attention when long-term deformation is to be estimated with millimetric accuracy. Phase errors induced by uncompensated Faraday rotation constitute a non-negligible source of bias in interferometric deformation measurements.