Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska
©2014 Author(s). Drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs) are ubiquitous landforms on Arctic tundra lowland. Their dynamic states are seldom investigated, despite their importance for landscape stability, hydrology, nutrient fluxes, and carbon cycling. Here we report results based on high-resolution...
Published in: | The Cryosphere |
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Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11919/1154 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 |
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ftcolostateunidc:oai:mountainscholar.org:20.500.11919/1154 2023-05-15T13:03:33+02:00 Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska Liu, Lin Schaefer, Kevin M. Gusmeroli, Alessio Grosse, Guido Jones, Benjamin M. Zhang, Tao Parsekian, Andrew Zebker, Howard A. 2014-05-03 application/pdf https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11919/1154 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 English eng eng University of Wyoming. Libraries Faculty Publication - Geology & Geophysics https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11919/1154 doi:10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ CC-BY Geology and Geophysics Faculty Publications Journal contribution 2014 ftcolostateunidc https://doi.org/20.500.11919/1154 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 2021-07-14T20:51:33Z ©2014 Author(s). Drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs) are ubiquitous landforms on Arctic tundra lowland. Their dynamic states are seldom investigated, despite their importance for landscape stability, hydrology, nutrient fluxes, and carbon cycling. Here we report results based on high-resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements using space-borne data for a study area located on the North Slope of Alaska near Prudhoe Bay, where we focus on the seasonal thaw settlement within DTLBs, averaged between 2006 and 2010. The majority (14) of the 18 DTLBs in the study area exhibited seasonal thaw settlement of 3-4 cm. However, four of the DTLBs examined exceeded 4 cm of thaw settlement, with one basin experiencing up to 12 cm. Combining the InSAR observations with the in situ active layer thickness measured using ground penetrating radar and mechanical probing, we calculated thaw strain, an index of thaw settlement strength along a transect across the basin that underwent large thaw settlement. We found thaw strains of 10-35% at the basin center, suggesting the seasonal melting of ground ice as a possible mechanism for the large settlement. These findings emphasize the dynamic nature of permafrost landforms, demonstrate the capability of the InSAR technique to remotely monitor surface deformation of individual DTLBs, and illustrate the combination of ground-based and remote sensing observations to estimate thaw strain. Our study highlights the need for better description of the spatial heterogeneity of landscape-scale processes for regional assessment of surface dynamics on Arctic coastal lowlands. Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper Active layer thickness Arctic Ice north slope permafrost Prudhoe Bay Thermokarst Tundra Alaska Digital Collections of Colorado (Colorado State University) Arctic The Cryosphere 8 3 815 826 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Digital Collections of Colorado (Colorado State University) |
op_collection_id |
ftcolostateunidc |
language |
English |
description |
©2014 Author(s). Drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs) are ubiquitous landforms on Arctic tundra lowland. Their dynamic states are seldom investigated, despite their importance for landscape stability, hydrology, nutrient fluxes, and carbon cycling. Here we report results based on high-resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements using space-borne data for a study area located on the North Slope of Alaska near Prudhoe Bay, where we focus on the seasonal thaw settlement within DTLBs, averaged between 2006 and 2010. The majority (14) of the 18 DTLBs in the study area exhibited seasonal thaw settlement of 3-4 cm. However, four of the DTLBs examined exceeded 4 cm of thaw settlement, with one basin experiencing up to 12 cm. Combining the InSAR observations with the in situ active layer thickness measured using ground penetrating radar and mechanical probing, we calculated thaw strain, an index of thaw settlement strength along a transect across the basin that underwent large thaw settlement. We found thaw strains of 10-35% at the basin center, suggesting the seasonal melting of ground ice as a possible mechanism for the large settlement. These findings emphasize the dynamic nature of permafrost landforms, demonstrate the capability of the InSAR technique to remotely monitor surface deformation of individual DTLBs, and illustrate the combination of ground-based and remote sensing observations to estimate thaw strain. Our study highlights the need for better description of the spatial heterogeneity of landscape-scale processes for regional assessment of surface dynamics on Arctic coastal lowlands. |
format |
Other Non-Article Part of Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Liu, Lin Schaefer, Kevin M. Gusmeroli, Alessio Grosse, Guido Jones, Benjamin M. Zhang, Tao Parsekian, Andrew Zebker, Howard A. |
spellingShingle |
Liu, Lin Schaefer, Kevin M. Gusmeroli, Alessio Grosse, Guido Jones, Benjamin M. Zhang, Tao Parsekian, Andrew Zebker, Howard A. Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
author_facet |
Liu, Lin Schaefer, Kevin M. Gusmeroli, Alessio Grosse, Guido Jones, Benjamin M. Zhang, Tao Parsekian, Andrew Zebker, Howard A. |
author_sort |
Liu, Lin |
title |
Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
title_short |
Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
title_full |
Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
title_fullStr |
Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
title_full_unstemmed |
Seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, Arctic Alaska |
title_sort |
seasonal thaw settlement at drained thermokarst lake basins, arctic alaska |
publisher |
University of Wyoming. Libraries |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11919/1154 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Active layer thickness Arctic Ice north slope permafrost Prudhoe Bay Thermokarst Tundra Alaska |
genre_facet |
Active layer thickness Arctic Ice north slope permafrost Prudhoe Bay Thermokarst Tundra Alaska |
op_source |
Geology and Geophysics Faculty Publications |
op_relation |
Faculty Publication - Geology & Geophysics https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11919/1154 doi:10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 |
op_rights |
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/20.500.11919/1154 https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-8-815-2014 |
container_title |
The Cryosphere |
container_volume |
8 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
815 |
op_container_end_page |
826 |
_version_ |
1766339347796197376 |