A synthesis of three decades of hydrological research at Scotty Creek, NWT, Canada

Quinton, William L.; Berg, Aaron; Braverman, Michael; Carpino, Olivia; Chasmer, L.; Connon, Ryan F.; Craig, James R.; Devoie, Élise; Hayashi, Masaki; Haynes, Kristine M.; Olefeldt, David; Pietroniro, Alain; Rezanezhad, Fereidoun; Schincariol, Robert A.; Sonnentag, Oliver

doi:10.5194/hess-23-2015-2019

Cited by 43 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 95 publications

(147 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The small annual loss of permafrost in a 10‐year simulation indicates that the current condition of peat plateaux results in permafrost degradation. Given long enough periods forced with these consistent boundary conditions, it is expected that the permafrost will begin to degrade, as discussed for this field site in Quinton et al (). This is analogous to results found by Briggs et al () who show that though permafrost aggradation has been observed in draining lakes, this phenomenon is only transitionary as the permafrost is an artifact of the groundwater regime and shading from shrubs, and it is expected to thaw within the decade.…”

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 89%

Taliks: A Tipping Point in Discontinuous Permafrost Degradation in Peatlands

Devoie

Craig

Connon

et al. 2019

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Taliks (perennially thawed soil in a permafrost environment) are generally found beneath water bodies or wetlands, and their development and evolution in other environments is poorly documented. Sustained isolated taliks between seasonally frozen surface soils and permafrost have been observed at the Scotty Creek Research Station in the discontinuous permafrost region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. These taliks have been expanding both vertically and laterally over the past decade of monitoring. The main controls on expansion are thought to be (1) the availability of energy, determined by incoming radiation and advective heat flux, (2) the ability to transfer this energy to the freezing/thawing front, determined by the thermal conductivity (soil properties and moisture content), and (3) the presence and thickness of the snowpack. These controls are investigated using data collected in the field to inform a 1‐D coupled thermodynamic freeze‐thaw and unsaturated flow model. The model was successfully used to represent observed thaw rates in different parts of the landscape. It is found that high soil moisture, deeper snowpacks, and warmer or faster advective flow rates all contribute to accelerated talik growth and subsequent permafrost degradation. Simulations show that slight perturbations of available energy or soil properties, such as an increase in average surface temperature of 0.5°C or a 1‐cm change in snow water equivalent, can lead to talik formation, highlighting the vulnerability of this landscape to changes in climate or land cover.

show abstract

Section: Synthesismentioning

confidence: 89%

Taliks: A Tipping Point in Discontinuous Permafrost Degradation in Peatlands

Devoie

Craig

Connon

et al. 2019

Water Resources Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Intensive field studies first began at Scotty Creek in the 1990s with the goal of better understanding northern peatland landscapes (Quinton et al 2019). A comprehensive archive of ground-based energy and water measurements was used in this study to examine the temporal variation in landscape characteristics at Scotty Creek.…”

Section: Field-based Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Scotty Creek Research Station (SCRS; 61.3°N, 121.3°W) has been the site of extensive field-based studies over the past 20 years and provides an opportunity to use long-term 160 and detailed datasets that are uncommon in northern research (Quinton et al 2019). The trajectory of change proposed in this study is based upon observational data collected by the SCRS and geospatial data across the broader study region.…”

Section: Scotty Creek Nwtmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is growing evidence that plateau-wetland complexes within peatland-dominated 175 environments are highly susceptible to shifts in the direction and magnitude of water and energy fluxes in response to climatic changes (St. Jacques & Sauchyn 2009;Quinton et al 2019). The SCRS presents a unique opportunity to study warming-induced landcover changes to plateauwetland complexes in the Taiga Plains given the relatively long record of field and modelling studies at this site, which have coincided with a period of drastic climate warming.…”

Section: Northwest Territoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The trajectory of landcover change in peatland complexes with discontinuous permafrost, northwestern Canada

Carpino

Haynes

Connon

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. The discontinuous permafrost zone is undergoing rapid transformation as a result of unprecedented permafrost thaw brought on by circumpolar climate warming. Rapid climate warming over recent decades has significantly decreased the area underlain by permafrost in peatland complexes. It has catalyzed extensive landscape transitions in the Taiga Plains of northwestern Canada, transforming forest-dominated landscapes to those that are wetland-dominated. The high rate and large spatial extent of this thaw-induced landcover transformation indicates that this region is particularly sensitive to warming temperatures and will continue to respond to climatic changes and landscape disturbances. This study explores the current trajectory of landcover change across a 300 000 km2 region of northwestern Canada's discontinuous permafrost zone by presenting a space-for-time substitution that capitalizes on the region's 600 km latitudinal span. To illustrate this trajectory of change we present the distribution of peatland-rich environments that govern permafrost coverage in this region of the discontinuous permafrost zone. We also establish that relatively undisturbed forested plateau-wetland complexes dominate the region's higher latitudes, forest-wetland patchworks are most prevalent at the medial latitudes, and forested peatlands are increasingly present across lower latitudes, indicating not only a climatic gradient but also a landscape in transition as local mean temperatures increase. This study combines extensive geomatics data with ground-based meteorological and hydrological measurements to inform a new conceptual model of landscape evolution that accounts for the observed patterns of permafrost thaw-induced landcover change, and provides a basis for predicting future changes.

show abstract

“…The cost and logistical challenges of working in remote and northern areas are rarely explicitly mentioned in publications (e.g., Petrone, Jones, Hinzman, & Boone, ; Shatilla & Carey, ). However, these factors cause research resources to be funnelled into a handful of long‐term monitoring sites with existing support (e.g., Scotty Creek, Quinton et al, ; Baker Creek, Spence & Hedstrom, ; Wolf Creek, Rasouli, Pomeroy, Janowicz, Williams, & Carey, ; Utikuma Region Study Area, Devito, Mendoza, & Qualizza, ). These observatories are extremely valuable, as they provide long‐term high spatial and temporal resolution datasets that improve process understanding and predictive modelling, and are essential in identifying hydrological trends (e.g., DeBeer et al, ; Rasouli, Hernández‐Henríquez, & Déry, ; Spence, Kokelj, Kokelj, McCluskie, & Hedstrom, ; Tetzlaff, Carey, McNamara, Laudon, & Soulsby, ).…”

Section: Making the Most Of The Available Datamentioning

confidence: 99%