Impacts of shore expansion and catchment characteristics on lacustrine thermokarst records in permafrost lowlands, Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain

Lenz, Josefine; Jones, Benjamin M.; Wetterich, Sebastian; Tjallingii, Rik; Fritz, Michael; Arp, Christopher D.; Rudaya, Natalia; Grosse, Guido

doi:10.1007/s41063-016-0025-0

Cited by 27 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…We assume the lake initiation age of 1,400 years B.P. reported in Lenz, Jones, et al () to be accurate; however, even within their results they report calculated calibrated ages of the lake from different materials from three cores from ages as low as 710 to as high as 4,200 years B.P. An age of 2,100 years was calculated from the 210 Pb concentration and assumed constant sedimentation rate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Transient Electromagnetic Surveys for the Determination of Talik Depth and Geometry Beneath Thermokarst Lakes

et al. 2018

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Thermokarst lakes are prevalent in Arctic coastal lowland regions and sublake permafrost degradation and talik development contributes to greenhouse gas emissions by tapping the large permafrost carbon pool. Whereas lateral thermokarst lake expansion is readily apparent through remote sensing and shoreline measurements, sublake thawed sediment conditions and talik growth are difficult to measure. Here we combine transient electromagnetic surveys with thermal modeling, backed up by measured permafrost properties and radiocarbon ages, to reveal closed‐talik geometry associated with a thermokarst lake in continuous permafrost. To improve access to talik geometry data, we conducted surveys along three transient electromagnetic transects perpendicular to lakeshores with different decadal‐scale expansion rates of 0.16, 0.38, and 0.58 m/year. We modeled thermal development of the talik using boundary conditions based on field data from the lake, surrounding permafrost and a borehole, independent of the transient electromagnetics. A talik depth of 91 m was determined from analysis of the transient electromagnetic surveys. Using a lake initiation age of 1400 years before present and available subsurface properties the results from thermal modeling of the lake center arrived at a best estimate talk depth of 80 m, which is on the same order of magnitude as the results from the transient electromagnetic survey. Our approach has provided a noninvasive estimate of talik geometry suitable for comparable settings throughout circum‐Arctic coastal lowland regions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Transient Electromagnetic Surveys for the Determination of Talik Depth and Geometry Beneath Thermokarst Lakes

et al. 2018

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“…The YOCP and OCP are directly located closer to the Beaufort Sea and are characterized by flat terrain with mostly fine grained icerich marine silt (YOCP) or sand (OCP) and numerous shallow lakes, drained thermokarst lake basins, and other lowland thermokarst features [15,16,57]. The ICP in the southern and central part is characterized by undulating terrain with sandy deposits of marine and eolian origin and with a high density of lakes that have shallow margins and deep centers [5,52,58,59].…”

Section: Alaska North Slope (Nsl)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Landsat-Based Trend Analysis of Lake Dynamics across Northern Permafrost Regions

et al. 2017

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Lakes are a ubiquitous landscape feature in northern permafrost regions. They have a strong impact on carbon, energy and water fluxes and can be quite responsive to climate change. The monitoring of lake change in northern high latitudes, at a sufficiently accurate spatial and temporal resolution, is crucial for understanding the underlying processes driving lake change. To date, lake change studies in permafrost regions were based on a variety of different sources, image acquisition periods and single snapshots, and localized analysis, which hinders the comparison of different regions. Here, we present a methodology based on machine-learning based classification of robust trends of multi-spectral indices of Landsat data (TM, ETM+, OLI) and object-based lake detection, to analyze and compare the individual, local and regional lake dynamics of four different study sites (Alaska North Slope, Western Alaska, Central Yakutia, Kolyma Lowland) in the northern permafrost zone from 1999 to 2014. Regional patterns of lake area change on the Alaska North Slope (−0.69%), Western Alaska (−2.82%), and Kolyma Lowland (−0.51%) largely include increases due to thermokarst lake expansion, but more dominant lake area losses due to catastrophic lake drainage events. In contrast, Central Yakutia showed a remarkable increase in lake area of 48.48%, likely resulting from warmer and wetter climate conditions over the latter half of the study period. Within all study regions, variability in lake dynamics was associated with differences in permafrost characteristics, landscape position (i.e., upland vs. lowland), and surface geology. With the global availability of Landsat data and a consistent methodology for processing the input data derived from robust trends of multi-spectral indices, we demonstrate a transferability, scalability and consistency of lake change analysis within the northern permafrost region.

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“…In total, this study includes 12 permafrost soil cores from DTLBs plus one profile where we sampled only the thawed layer in a DTLB, three lake sediment cores from Peatball Lake (Lenz et al, ), and one permafrost soil core from a remnant upland at the eastern shoreline of Peatball Lake (Table ). We collected permafrost soil cores in DTLBs of different drainage ages in July 2015 along two transects TES15‐T1 (1‐km length) and TES15‐T3 (1.8‐km length), which were chosen to cover DTLBs of different lake stages.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The lake sediment cores from Peatball Lake (P1, P2, and P3) were collected in spring and summer 2014. The sampling procedures follow established lake core analysis protocols described in Lenz et al (). The permafrost core (TES‐UPL‐2) from the upland close to Peatball Lake was collected in spring 2014 with the SIPRE auger and kept complete and frozen during the entire transport to the laboratory at AWI, where it was later described and subsampled.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic Carbon and Nitrogen Stocks Along a Thermokarst Lake Sequence in Arctic Alaska

et al. 2019

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Thermokarst lake landscapes are permafrost regions, which are prone to rapid (on seasonal to decadal time scales) changes, affecting carbon and nitrogen cycles. However, there is a high degree of uncertainty related to the balance between carbon and nitrogen cycling and storage. We collected 12 permafrost soil cores from six drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs) along a chronosequence north of Teshekpuk Lake in northern Alaska and analyzed them for carbon and nitrogen contents. For comparison, we included three lacustrine cores from an adjacent thermokarst lake and one soil core from a non thermokarst affected remnant upland. This allowed to calculate the carbon and nitrogen stocks of the three primary landscape units (DTLB, lake, and upland), to reconstruct the landscape history, and to analyze the effect of thermokarst lake formation and drainage on carbon and nitrogen stocks. We show that carbon and nitrogen contents and the carbon‐nitrogen ratio are considerably lower in sediments of extant lakes than in the DTLB or upland cores indicating degradation of carbon during thermokarst lake formation. However, we found similar amounts of total carbon and nitrogen stocks due to the higher density of lacustrine sediments caused by the lack of ground ice compared to DTLB sediments. In addition, the radiocarbon‐based landscape chronology for the past 7,000 years reveals five successive lake stages of partially, spatially overlapping DTLBs in the study region, reflecting the dynamic nature of ice‐rich permafrost deposits. With this study, we highlight the importance to include these dynamic landscapes in future permafrost carbon feedback models.

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Impacts of shore expansion and catchment characteristics on lacustrine thermokarst records in permafrost lowlands, Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain

Cited by 27 publications

References 79 publications

Transient Electromagnetic Surveys for the Determination of Talik Depth and Geometry Beneath Thermokarst Lakes

Transient Electromagnetic Surveys for the Determination of Talik Depth and Geometry Beneath Thermokarst Lakes

Landsat-Based Trend Analysis of Lake Dynamics across Northern Permafrost Regions

Organic Carbon and Nitrogen Stocks Along a Thermokarst Lake Sequence in Arctic Alaska

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