Congratulations Dr Bernhard!
On March 31, 2022, Philipp Bernhard has successfully presented and defended his PhD thesis with the title: "Large-scale monitoring of rapid permafrost thaw with satellite radar interferometry".
In his thesis he investigated one form of abrupt permafrost thaw in the remote Arctic regions, named retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS). RTSs initiate when ice-rich soils are exposed and thaw, leading to the formation of a steep headwall which retreats during the summer months. In the process they can mobilizes vast quantities of sediments on a time-scale of years and contribute to the permafrost-carbon feedback.
To improve our understanding of RTS development and evolution he used time-series of elevation models generated from the TanDEM-X satellites. Using this unique dataset he could show that RTS follow several scaling relation that describe their occurrence and impact, and that the carbon mobilization due to RTS activity is an important contributor to the Arctic carbon cycle, which responds non-linearly to warming. The results highlights the sensitivity of the Arctic landscapes underlain by cold ice-rich permafrost to increasing temperatures.