Remote sensing of recent changes in permafrost-influenced wetlands ...

• Main Author: Young, Tun Jan
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository 2013
• Subjects: remote sensing; permafrost; Canada; GIS; thermokarst; Northwest Territories; Tuktoyaktuk; Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula; Thermokarst
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.56679; https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/309585

Changes in thermokarst lakes have been identified across many high-latitude ecosystems at different spatial and temporal scales. With the declassification of the Landsat archive in 2008, it is now possible to conduct a near-complete yearly time series of homogenous geospatial imagery to assess the trends seen in thermokarst lake surface area. By implementing an automated land- cover classification algorithm, this study examined the dynamics of lake surface area over different spatial and temporal scales in the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, Northwest Territories, Canada. Due to the presence of a statistically significant structural temporal break between the years 1997 and 1998, lake areal trends were estimated at two temporal scales, a longer term scale (1985 to 2011) and its component shorter scales (1985 to 1997 and 1998 to 2011). Large lakes saw the greatest changes both in lake areal increase and decreases at all temporal scales, and was suggested to drive the overall changes in surface area. In addition, ...