Long‐Term, High‐Resolution Permafrost Monitoring Reveals Coupled Energy Balance and Hydrogeologic Controls on Talik Dynamics Near Umiujaq (Nunavik, Québec, Canada)

Abstract

Temperatures in northern regions are currently rising up to four times faster than the global mean, effectively driving permafrost thaw (AMAP, 2021;Box et al., 2019;Overland et al., 2019;Rantanen et al., 2022). As a result, accurate predictions of permafrost degradation are important for the development of effective mitigation and adaptation strategies in these areas (AMAP, 2019). Previous work has shown that permafrost thaw has major implications for Arctic and subarctic hydrology (e.g., Walvoord & Kurylyk, 2016), landscape evolution (e.g.,

Substantiation of the Monitoring Network of Talik Zones in Urbanized Permafrost Areas Based on GPR Profiling Data (Aanadyr, Chukotka)

“…In such an environment, the expansion of existing and the formation of new talik zones in urbanized territories is the main threat of thawing of the frozen soil of the foundations of buildings and structures. The authors of the works [4,18,26] also came to such conclusions.…”

“…In natural landscapes, the result of thermokarst on flat terrain is the formation of swamps and shallow lakes, and on mountain slopes -linear melting zones, which represent groundwater runoff routes. In addition to low-mountain landscapes, linear thermokarst is typical for marine and river terraces [13][14][15][16][17][18]. On the surface, taliks usually correspond to depressions and shallow ravines with drying streams [16,19].…”

“…The formation and runoff of condensation waters in the active layer of mountain-tundra landscapes of the cryolithozone is one of the main sources of nutrition for rivers and groundwater [21]. In the conditions of the rugged relief of the slopes and the mosaic structure of the cryolithological basis of the landscape, talic zones form a complex structure [4,17,18]. By changing the configuration of the boundaries, hydrogenic talic zones thaw out arrays of frozen soils, but not from the surface as with the radiation-convective effect of the atmosphere, but along the front of their expansion and deepening.…”

“…It is difficult to predict the development of talik zones in natural and anthropogenic landscapes using climate modeling. This is due to the fact that the dynamics of the hydrogenic talik with current climate changes is indirectly related through intermediate links of climatic and cryohydrogeological processes [1,14,16,18]. Therefore, in order to predict the impact of the dynamics of talic zones on the stability of foundations of buildings and structures, comprehensive monitoring of the physical and spatial characteristics of thawed and thawing grounds is necessary, followed by statistical modeling of dangerous exogenous cryogenic processes.…”