Tundra lake changes from 1978 to 2001 on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, western Canadian Arctic

Abstract

Landsat scenes spanning 1978–2001 were used to classify thermokarst lake area and determine changes in lake coverage on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula in northwestern Canada. Changes in total lake area between scenes were substantial, spanning a 14% increase and 11% decrease, mostly owing to changes in the area of lakes >1.3 km2 in area. Increases in total lake area occurred primarily between 1978–1992, and decreases between 1992–2001. Differences in total lake area between scenes from different years depend strongly on cumulative precipitation in the 12 month period preceding scene acquisition (r2 = 0.82), and not on summer or mean annual air temperature (MAAT). Our results indicate that precipitation is the primary factor influencing the areal extent of lakes as detected by remote sensing. On the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, persistent lake area changes (if any) such as might occur by regional warming or changes in evaporation/precipitation balance over decades, are well‐masked by short‐term climatological changes.

Drainage Network Structure and Hydrologic Behavior of Three Lake-Rich Watersheds on the Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska

“…The role of storage deficit from C. D. ARP ET AL. / 393 the preceding season is an important process for ACP watersheds suggested by Bowling et al (2003) and observed in Landsat timeseries analysis of lake area extent for this region (Jorgenson et al, 2005;Jones et al, 2009a) and other ACP landscapes (Plug et al, 2008;Arp et al, 2011 ). The summer of 2009 was considered very wet and relatively cool and cloudy; the lower storage deficit from 2008 conditions combined with relatively large snowpack likely resulted in the much higher water yield.…”

“…In ACP watersheds, the extreme seasonality in wetland extent is a well documented phenomena that controls watershed water balance and runoff (Roulet and Woo, 1988;Bowling et al, 2003). Interannual variability in ACP lake-area extent is also strongly tied to precipitation (Plug et al, 2008;Jones et al, 2009a) and evaporation (Roulet and Woo, 1988;Rovansek et al, 1996;Kane et al, 2008) regimes. Additionally, thermokarst lakes, which form in ice-rich permafrost and are the dominant lake type on the ACP and other Arctic landscapes, expand by shoreline erosion with detectable increases in surface area for individual lakes and regionally (Smith et al, 2005) at decadal time scales.…”

Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland

“…The majority of available studies had a rather limited geographic coverage (<10,000 km 2 , [16,32,33]), or described relatively small regions within larger territories [29]. The high resolution studies, down to 0.1 ha lake size, dealt with even smaller territories (700 km 2 in ref.…”

Hydrological connectivity from glaciers to rivers in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau: roles of suprapermafrost and subpermafrost groundwater

“…Several models have been proposed to obtain the dilution factor (e.g., Mook, 1980;Pearson and Hanshaw, 1970;Tamers, 1975;Vogel, 1970Vogel, , 1967Vogel and Ehhalt, 1963). In this study, a δ 13 C-mixing model modified by Clark and Fritz (1997) from the Pearson model (Pearson and Hanshaw, 1970) was applied to correct the 14 C dilution by carbonate dissolution. This model is based on variations in 13 C abundance, which differs significantly between the soil-derived DIC and carbonate minerals in the aquifer and is thus a good tracer of DIC evolution in groundwaters.…”

“…At high latitudes, permafrost distribution may affect lake density in addition to surface flow (Anderson et al, 2013). In areas of continuous permafrost, subpermafrost groundwater is often isolated from the surface, and there are unique mechanisms in thermokarst lake dynamics such as lateral expansion and breaching (Jones et al, 2011;Plug et al, 2008). Permafrost is now warming and thawing in many regions of the world (e.g., Anderson et al, 2013), and connections between permafrost degradation and local hydrologic changes have been established (e.g., O'Donnell et al, 2012;Yoshikawa and Hinzman, 2003).…”