Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions
Permafrost thaw is often perceived as a slow process dominated by press disturbances such as gradual active layer thickening. However, various pulse disturbances such as thermokarst formation can substantially increase the rate of permafrost thaw and result in rapid landscape change on sub-decadal t...
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ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:34851 2024-09-15T17:50:47+00:00 Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions Grosse, Guido Romanovsky, Vladimir Arp, Christopher Jones, Benjamin 2013 https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/34851/ https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.43044 unknown American Geophysical Union Grosse, G. orcid:0000-0001-5895-2141 , Romanovsky, V. , Arp, C. and Jones, B. (2013) Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions , AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 9 December 2013 - 13 December 2013 . hdl:10013/epic.43044 EPIC3AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 2013-12-09-2013-12-13San Francisco, American Geophysical Union Conference notRev 2013 ftawi 2024-06-24T04:08:32Z Permafrost thaw is often perceived as a slow process dominated by press disturbances such as gradual active layer thickening. However, various pulse disturbances such as thermokarst formation can substantially increase the rate of permafrost thaw and result in rapid landscape change on sub-decadal to decadal time scales. Other disturbances associated with permafrost thaw are even more dynamic and unfold on sub-annual timescales, such as catastrophic thermokarst lake drainage. The diversity of processes results in complex feedbacks with soil carbon pools, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, and flora and fauna, and requires a differentiated approach when quantifying how these ecosystem componentsare affected,how vulnerablethey are to rapid change, and what regional to global scale impacts result. Here we show quantitative measurements for three examples of rapid pulse disturbances in permafrost regions as observed with remote sensing data time series: The formation of a mega thaw slump (>50 ha) in syngenetic permafrost in Siberia, the formation of new thermokarst ponds in ice-rich permafrost regions in Alaska and Siberia, and the drainage of thermokarst lakes along a gradient of permafrost extent in Western Alaska. The surprising setting and unabated growth of the mega thaw slump during the last 40 years indicates that limited information on panarctic ground ice distribution, abundance, and vulnerability remains a key gap for reliable projections of thermokarst and thermo-erosion impacts, and that the natural limits on the growth and size of thaw slumps are still poorly understood. Observed thermokarst pond formation and expansion in our study regions was closely tied to ice-rich permafrost terrain, such as syngenetic Yedoma uplands, but was also found in old drained thermokarst lake basins with epigenetic permafrost and shallow drained thermokarst lake basins whose ground ice had not been depleted by the prior lake phase. The very different substrates in which new ponds have been forming indicate a broad range ... Conference Object Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska Siberia Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
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Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
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description |
Permafrost thaw is often perceived as a slow process dominated by press disturbances such as gradual active layer thickening. However, various pulse disturbances such as thermokarst formation can substantially increase the rate of permafrost thaw and result in rapid landscape change on sub-decadal to decadal time scales. Other disturbances associated with permafrost thaw are even more dynamic and unfold on sub-annual timescales, such as catastrophic thermokarst lake drainage. The diversity of processes results in complex feedbacks with soil carbon pools, biogeochemical cycles, hydrology, and flora and fauna, and requires a differentiated approach when quantifying how these ecosystem componentsare affected,how vulnerablethey are to rapid change, and what regional to global scale impacts result. Here we show quantitative measurements for three examples of rapid pulse disturbances in permafrost regions as observed with remote sensing data time series: The formation of a mega thaw slump (>50 ha) in syngenetic permafrost in Siberia, the formation of new thermokarst ponds in ice-rich permafrost regions in Alaska and Siberia, and the drainage of thermokarst lakes along a gradient of permafrost extent in Western Alaska. The surprising setting and unabated growth of the mega thaw slump during the last 40 years indicates that limited information on panarctic ground ice distribution, abundance, and vulnerability remains a key gap for reliable projections of thermokarst and thermo-erosion impacts, and that the natural limits on the growth and size of thaw slumps are still poorly understood. Observed thermokarst pond formation and expansion in our study regions was closely tied to ice-rich permafrost terrain, such as syngenetic Yedoma uplands, but was also found in old drained thermokarst lake basins with epigenetic permafrost and shallow drained thermokarst lake basins whose ground ice had not been depleted by the prior lake phase. The very different substrates in which new ponds have been forming indicate a broad range ... |
format |
Conference Object |
author |
Grosse, Guido Romanovsky, Vladimir Arp, Christopher Jones, Benjamin |
spellingShingle |
Grosse, Guido Romanovsky, Vladimir Arp, Christopher Jones, Benjamin Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
author_facet |
Grosse, Guido Romanovsky, Vladimir Arp, Christopher Jones, Benjamin |
author_sort |
Grosse, Guido |
title |
Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
title_short |
Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
title_full |
Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
title_fullStr |
Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
title_full_unstemmed |
Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions |
title_sort |
rapid disturbances in arctic permafrost regions |
publisher |
American Geophysical Union |
publishDate |
2013 |
url |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/34851/ https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.43044 |
genre |
Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alaska Siberia |
op_source |
EPIC3AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 2013-12-09-2013-12-13San Francisco, American Geophysical Union |
op_relation |
Grosse, G. orcid:0000-0001-5895-2141 , Romanovsky, V. , Arp, C. and Jones, B. (2013) Rapid disturbances in Arctic permafrost regions , AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 9 December 2013 - 13 December 2013 . hdl:10013/epic.43044 |
_version_ |
1810292592093429760 |