Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland
Despite the importance of thermokarst (thaw) lakes of the subarctic zone in regulating greenhouse gas exchange with the atmosphere and the flux of metal pollutants and micro-nutrients to the ocean, the inventory of lake distribution and stock of solutes for the permafrost-affected zone are not avail...
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ftmdpi:oai:mdpi.com:/2073-4441/9/3/228/ 2023-08-20T04:05:03+02:00 Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland Yury Polishchuk Alexander Bogdanov Vladimir Polishchuk Rinat Manasypov Liudmila Shirokova Sergey Kirpotin Oleg Pokrovsky agris 2017-03-21 application/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 EN eng Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute Hydrology https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Water; Volume 9; Issue 3; Pages: 228 remote sensing size surface volume thermokarst carbon metal Text 2017 ftmdpi https://doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 2023-07-31T21:04:39Z Despite the importance of thermokarst (thaw) lakes of the subarctic zone in regulating greenhouse gas exchange with the atmosphere and the flux of metal pollutants and micro-nutrients to the ocean, the inventory of lake distribution and stock of solutes for the permafrost-affected zone are not available. We quantified the abundance of thermokarst lakes in the continuous, discontinuous, and sporadic permafrost zones of the western Siberian Lowland (WSL) using Landsat-8 scenes collected over the summers of 2013 and 2014. In a territory of 105 million ha, the total number of lakes >0.5 ha is 727,700, with a total surface area of 5.97 million ha, yielding an average lake coverage of 5.69% of the territory. Small lakes (0.5–1.0 ha) constitute about one third of the total number of lakes in the permafrost-bearing zone of WSL, yet their surface area does not exceed 2.9% of the total area of lakes in WSL. The latitudinal pattern of lake number and surface coverage follows the local topography and dominant landscape zones. The role of thermokarst lakes in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and most trace element storage in the territory of WSL is non-negligible compared to that of rivers. The annual lake storage across the WSL of DOC, Cd, Pb, Cr, and Al constitutes 16%, 34%, 37%, 57%, and 73%, respectively, of their annual delivery by WSL rivers to the Arctic Ocean from the same territory. However, given that the concentrations of DOC and metals in the smallest lakes (<0.5 ha) are much higher than those in the medium and large lakes, the contribution of small lakes to the overall carbon and metal budget may be comparable to, or greater than, their contribution to the water storage. As such, observations at high spatial resolution (<0.5 ha) are needed to constrain the reservoirs and the mobility of carbon and metals in aquatic systems. To upscale the DOC and metal storage in lakes of the whole subarctic, the remote sensing should be coupled with hydrochemical measurements in aquatic systems of boreal plains. Text Arctic Arctic Ocean permafrost Subarctic Thermokarst Siberia MDPI Open Access Publishing Arctic Arctic Ocean Water 9 3 228 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
MDPI Open Access Publishing |
op_collection_id |
ftmdpi |
language |
English |
topic |
remote sensing size surface volume thermokarst carbon metal |
spellingShingle |
remote sensing size surface volume thermokarst carbon metal Yury Polishchuk Alexander Bogdanov Vladimir Polishchuk Rinat Manasypov Liudmila Shirokova Sergey Kirpotin Oleg Pokrovsky Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
topic_facet |
remote sensing size surface volume thermokarst carbon metal |
description |
Despite the importance of thermokarst (thaw) lakes of the subarctic zone in regulating greenhouse gas exchange with the atmosphere and the flux of metal pollutants and micro-nutrients to the ocean, the inventory of lake distribution and stock of solutes for the permafrost-affected zone are not available. We quantified the abundance of thermokarst lakes in the continuous, discontinuous, and sporadic permafrost zones of the western Siberian Lowland (WSL) using Landsat-8 scenes collected over the summers of 2013 and 2014. In a territory of 105 million ha, the total number of lakes >0.5 ha is 727,700, with a total surface area of 5.97 million ha, yielding an average lake coverage of 5.69% of the territory. Small lakes (0.5–1.0 ha) constitute about one third of the total number of lakes in the permafrost-bearing zone of WSL, yet their surface area does not exceed 2.9% of the total area of lakes in WSL. The latitudinal pattern of lake number and surface coverage follows the local topography and dominant landscape zones. The role of thermokarst lakes in dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and most trace element storage in the territory of WSL is non-negligible compared to that of rivers. The annual lake storage across the WSL of DOC, Cd, Pb, Cr, and Al constitutes 16%, 34%, 37%, 57%, and 73%, respectively, of their annual delivery by WSL rivers to the Arctic Ocean from the same territory. However, given that the concentrations of DOC and metals in the smallest lakes (<0.5 ha) are much higher than those in the medium and large lakes, the contribution of small lakes to the overall carbon and metal budget may be comparable to, or greater than, their contribution to the water storage. As such, observations at high spatial resolution (<0.5 ha) are needed to constrain the reservoirs and the mobility of carbon and metals in aquatic systems. To upscale the DOC and metal storage in lakes of the whole subarctic, the remote sensing should be coupled with hydrochemical measurements in aquatic systems of boreal plains. |
format |
Text |
author |
Yury Polishchuk Alexander Bogdanov Vladimir Polishchuk Rinat Manasypov Liudmila Shirokova Sergey Kirpotin Oleg Pokrovsky |
author_facet |
Yury Polishchuk Alexander Bogdanov Vladimir Polishchuk Rinat Manasypov Liudmila Shirokova Sergey Kirpotin Oleg Pokrovsky |
author_sort |
Yury Polishchuk |
title |
Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
title_short |
Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
title_full |
Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
title_fullStr |
Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
title_full_unstemmed |
Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland |
title_sort |
size distribution, surface coverage, water, carbon, and metal storage of thermokarst lakes in the permafrost zone of the western siberia lowland |
publisher |
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 |
op_coverage |
agris |
geographic |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Ocean permafrost Subarctic Thermokarst Siberia |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Ocean permafrost Subarctic Thermokarst Siberia |
op_source |
Water; Volume 9; Issue 3; Pages: 228 |
op_relation |
Hydrology https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/w9030228 |
container_title |
Water |
container_volume |
9 |
container_issue |
3 |
container_start_page |
228 |
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1774715472571269120 |