Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada
Permafrost distribution throughout the western Canadian subarctic is not well understood due to the remoteness and size of the region, its spatial and temporal heterogeneity, limited data availability, and sparse monitoring networks. These factors severely challenge investigations of how climate war...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e https://doaj.org/article/63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 2023-09-05T13:22:02+02:00 Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada Olivia A Carpino Aaron A Berg William L Quinton Justin R Adams 2018-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e https://doaj.org/article/63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 8, p 084018 (2018) permafrost climate change boreal forest peatland landcover change Northwest Territories Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2018 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e 2023-08-13T00:37:31Z Permafrost distribution throughout the western Canadian subarctic is not well understood due to the remoteness and size of the region, its spatial and temporal heterogeneity, limited data availability, and sparse monitoring networks. These factors severely challenge investigations of how climate warming might affect the distribution of permafrost and provide strong justification for new methods of evaluating permafrost extent using remote sensing platforms. This study quantifies forest loss at ten subarctic boreal sites in the southern Northwest Territories and northeastern British Columbia between 1970 and 2010. Historical air photos and optical remote sensing images were assessed using a change detection approach over the ten sites, each 10 km ^2 spanning a north/south transect of 200 km. This study is the first to apply change detection methods to a large-scale gradient and spans the southern margin of discontinuous permafrost where results demonstrate variable patterns of net forest loss at each site ranged from 6.9% to 11.6% over the 40 year study period. Here we show that these differential rates of landcover change can be explained in part through climatic and environmental factors that vary latitudinally across the selected sites. Change statistics—net change, forest gain and forest loss were significantly correlated with an assortment of factors that varied across the ten-site transect. Article in Journal/Newspaper Northwest Territories permafrost Subarctic Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles British Columbia ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) Canada Northwest Territories Environmental Research Letters 13 8 084018 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
permafrost climate change boreal forest peatland landcover change Northwest Territories Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
permafrost climate change boreal forest peatland landcover change Northwest Territories Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 Olivia A Carpino Aaron A Berg William L Quinton Justin R Adams Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
topic_facet |
permafrost climate change boreal forest peatland landcover change Northwest Territories Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Permafrost distribution throughout the western Canadian subarctic is not well understood due to the remoteness and size of the region, its spatial and temporal heterogeneity, limited data availability, and sparse monitoring networks. These factors severely challenge investigations of how climate warming might affect the distribution of permafrost and provide strong justification for new methods of evaluating permafrost extent using remote sensing platforms. This study quantifies forest loss at ten subarctic boreal sites in the southern Northwest Territories and northeastern British Columbia between 1970 and 2010. Historical air photos and optical remote sensing images were assessed using a change detection approach over the ten sites, each 10 km ^2 spanning a north/south transect of 200 km. This study is the first to apply change detection methods to a large-scale gradient and spans the southern margin of discontinuous permafrost where results demonstrate variable patterns of net forest loss at each site ranged from 6.9% to 11.6% over the 40 year study period. Here we show that these differential rates of landcover change can be explained in part through climatic and environmental factors that vary latitudinally across the selected sites. Change statistics—net change, forest gain and forest loss were significantly correlated with an assortment of factors that varied across the ten-site transect. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Olivia A Carpino Aaron A Berg William L Quinton Justin R Adams |
author_facet |
Olivia A Carpino Aaron A Berg William L Quinton Justin R Adams |
author_sort |
Olivia A Carpino |
title |
Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
title_short |
Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
title_full |
Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
title_fullStr |
Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern Canada |
title_sort |
climate change and permafrost thaw-induced boreal forest loss in northwestern canada |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e https://doaj.org/article/63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-125.003,-125.003,54.000,54.000) |
geographic |
British Columbia Canada Northwest Territories |
geographic_facet |
British Columbia Canada Northwest Territories |
genre |
Northwest Territories permafrost Subarctic |
genre_facet |
Northwest Territories permafrost Subarctic |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 13, Iss 8, p 084018 (2018) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/63cc214af67f42a48cb22a8d54c6d9a5 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad74e |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
8 |
container_start_page |
084018 |
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1776202569851338752 |