Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia

Thermokarst lakes are widespread in Arctic lowlands. Under a warming climate, landscapes with highly ice-rich Yedoma Ice Complex (IC) deposits are particularly vulnerable, and thermokarst lake area dynamics serve as an indicator for their response to climate change. We conducted lake change trend an...

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Published in:Remote Sensing
Main Authors: Alexandra Veremeeva, Ingmar Nitze, Frank Günther, Guido Grosse, Elizaveta Rivkina
Format: Text
Language:English
Published: Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2021
Subjects:
Ice
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178
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spelling ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2072-4292/13/2/178/ 2023-08-20T04:05:02+02:00 Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia Alexandra Veremeeva Ingmar Nitze Frank Günther Guido Grosse Elizaveta Rivkina agris 2021-01-06 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Biogeosciences Remote Sensing https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Remote Sensing; Volume 13; Issue 2; Pages: 178 thermokarst lakes thermokarst Yedoma Ice Complex ice-rich permafrost periglacial geomorphology lake dynamics lake drainage Kolyma Lowland Siberia Landsat-based trend analysis Text 2021 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178 2023-08-01T00:49:03Z Thermokarst lakes are widespread in Arctic lowlands. Under a warming climate, landscapes with highly ice-rich Yedoma Ice Complex (IC) deposits are particularly vulnerable, and thermokarst lake area dynamics serve as an indicator for their response to climate change. We conducted lake change trend analysis for a 44,500 km2 region of the Kolyma Lowland using Landsat imagery in conjunction with TanDEM-X digital elevation model and Quaternary Geology map data. We delineated yedoma–alas relief types with different yedoma fractions, serving as a base for geospatial analysis of lake area dynamics. We quantified lake changes over the 1999–2018 period using machine-learning-based classification of robust trends of multi-spectral indices of Landsat data and object-based long-term lake detection. We analyzed the lake area dynamics separately for 1999–2013 and 1999–2018 periods, including the most recent five years that were characterized by very high precipitation. Comparison of drained lake basin area with thermokarst lake extents reveal the overall limnicity decrease by 80% during the Holocene. Current climate warming and wetting in the region led to a lake area increase by 0.89% for the 1999–2013 period and an increase by 4.15% for the 1999–2018 period. We analyzed geomorphological factors impacting modern lake area changes for both periods such as lake size, elevation, and yedoma–alas relief type. We detected a lake area expansion trend in high yedoma fraction areas indicating ongoing Yedoma IC degradation by lake thermokarst. Our concept of differentiating yedoma–alas relief types helps to characterize landscape-scale lake area changes and could potentially be applied for refined assessments of greenhouse gas emissions in Yedoma regions. Comprehensive geomorphological inventories of Yedoma regions using geospatial data provide a better understanding of the extent of thermokarst processes during the Holocene and the pre-conditioning of modern thermokarst lake area dynamics. Text Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Thermokarst Siberia MDPI Open Access Publishing Arctic Kolyma ENVELOPE(161.000,161.000,69.500,69.500) Scale Lake ENVELOPE(78.174,78.174,-68.584,-68.584) Remote Sensing 13 2 178
institution Open Polar
collection MDPI Open Access Publishing
op_collection_id ftmdpi
language English
topic thermokarst lakes
thermokarst
Yedoma Ice Complex
ice-rich permafrost
periglacial geomorphology
lake dynamics
lake drainage
Kolyma Lowland
Siberia
Landsat-based trend analysis
spellingShingle thermokarst lakes
thermokarst
Yedoma Ice Complex
ice-rich permafrost
periglacial geomorphology
lake dynamics
lake drainage
Kolyma Lowland
Siberia
Landsat-based trend analysis
Alexandra Veremeeva
Ingmar Nitze
Frank Günther
Guido Grosse
Elizaveta Rivkina
Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
topic_facet thermokarst lakes
thermokarst
Yedoma Ice Complex
ice-rich permafrost
periglacial geomorphology
lake dynamics
lake drainage
Kolyma Lowland
Siberia
Landsat-based trend analysis
description Thermokarst lakes are widespread in Arctic lowlands. Under a warming climate, landscapes with highly ice-rich Yedoma Ice Complex (IC) deposits are particularly vulnerable, and thermokarst lake area dynamics serve as an indicator for their response to climate change. We conducted lake change trend analysis for a 44,500 km2 region of the Kolyma Lowland using Landsat imagery in conjunction with TanDEM-X digital elevation model and Quaternary Geology map data. We delineated yedoma–alas relief types with different yedoma fractions, serving as a base for geospatial analysis of lake area dynamics. We quantified lake changes over the 1999–2018 period using machine-learning-based classification of robust trends of multi-spectral indices of Landsat data and object-based long-term lake detection. We analyzed the lake area dynamics separately for 1999–2013 and 1999–2018 periods, including the most recent five years that were characterized by very high precipitation. Comparison of drained lake basin area with thermokarst lake extents reveal the overall limnicity decrease by 80% during the Holocene. Current climate warming and wetting in the region led to a lake area increase by 0.89% for the 1999–2013 period and an increase by 4.15% for the 1999–2018 period. We analyzed geomorphological factors impacting modern lake area changes for both periods such as lake size, elevation, and yedoma–alas relief type. We detected a lake area expansion trend in high yedoma fraction areas indicating ongoing Yedoma IC degradation by lake thermokarst. Our concept of differentiating yedoma–alas relief types helps to characterize landscape-scale lake area changes and could potentially be applied for refined assessments of greenhouse gas emissions in Yedoma regions. Comprehensive geomorphological inventories of Yedoma regions using geospatial data provide a better understanding of the extent of thermokarst processes during the Holocene and the pre-conditioning of modern thermokarst lake area dynamics.
format Text
author Alexandra Veremeeva
Ingmar Nitze
Frank Günther
Guido Grosse
Elizaveta Rivkina
author_facet Alexandra Veremeeva
Ingmar Nitze
Frank Günther
Guido Grosse
Elizaveta Rivkina
author_sort Alexandra Veremeeva
title Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
title_short Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
title_full Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
title_fullStr Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
title_full_unstemmed Geomorphological and Climatic Drivers of Thermokarst Lake Area Increase Trend (1999–2018) in the Kolyma Lowland Yedoma Region, North-Eastern Siberia
title_sort geomorphological and climatic drivers of thermokarst lake area increase trend (1999–2018) in the kolyma lowland yedoma region, north-eastern siberia
publisher Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
publishDate 2021
url https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178
op_coverage agris
long_lat ENVELOPE(161.000,161.000,69.500,69.500)
ENVELOPE(78.174,78.174,-68.584,-68.584)
geographic Arctic
Kolyma
Scale Lake
geographic_facet Arctic
Kolyma
Scale Lake
genre Arctic
Climate change
Ice
permafrost
Thermokarst
Siberia
genre_facet Arctic
Climate change
Ice
permafrost
Thermokarst
Siberia
op_source Remote Sensing; Volume 13; Issue 2; Pages: 178
op_relation Biogeosciences Remote Sensing
https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178
op_rights https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
op_doi https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13020178
container_title Remote Sensing
container_volume 13
container_issue 2
container_start_page 178
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