A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic
We report that eroding permafrost coasts are likely indicators and integrators of changes in the Arctic System as they are susceptible to the combined effects of declining sea ice extent, increases in open water duration, more frequent and impactful storms, sea-level rise, and warming permafrost. Ho...
Published in: | Environmental Research Letters |
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Online Access: | http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485841 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1485841 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 |
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ftosti:oai:osti.gov:1485841 2023-07-30T04:01:05+02:00 A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic Jones, Benjamin M. Farquharson, Louise M. Baughman, Carson A. Buzard, Richard M. Arp, Christopher D. Grosse, Guido Bull, Diana L. Günther, Frank Nitze, Ingmar Urban, Frank Kasper, Jeremy L. Frederick, Jennifer M. Thomas, Matthew Jones, Craig Mota, Alejandro Dallimore, Scott Tweedie, Craig Maio, Christopher Mann, Daniel H. Richmond, Bruce Gibbs, Ann Xiao, Ming Sachs, Torsten Iwahana, Go Kanevskiy, Mikhail Romanovsky, Vladimir E. 2021-08-30 application/pdf http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485841 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1485841 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 unknown http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485841 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1485841 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2021 ftosti https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 2023-07-11T09:30:28Z We report that eroding permafrost coasts are likely indicators and integrators of changes in the Arctic System as they are susceptible to the combined effects of declining sea ice extent, increases in open water duration, more frequent and impactful storms, sea-level rise, and warming permafrost. However, few observation sites in the Arctic have yet to link decadal-scale erosion rates with changing environmental conditions due to temporal data gaps. This study increases the temporal fidelity of coastal permafrost bluff observations using near-annual high spatial resolution (<1 m) satellite imagery acquired between 2008–2017 for a 9 km segment of coastline at Drew Point, Beaufort Sea coast, Alaska. Our results show that mean annual erosion for the 2007–2016 decade was 17.2 m yr -1 , which is 2.5 times faster than historic rates, indicating that bluff erosion at this site is likely responding to changes in the Arctic System. In spite of a sustained increase in decadal-scale mean annual erosion rates, mean open water season erosion varied from 6.7 m yr -1 in 2010 to more than 22.0 m yr -1 in 2007, 2012, and 2016. This variability provided a range of coastal responses through which we explored the different roles of potential environmental drivers. The lack of significant correlations between mean open water season erosion and the environmental variables compiled in this study indicates that we may not be adequately capturing the environmental forcing factors, that the system is conditioned by long-term transient effects or extreme weather events rather than annual variability, or that other not yet considered factors may be responsible for the increased erosion occurring at Drew Point. Finally, our results highlight an increase in erosion at Drew Point in the 21st century as well as the complexities associated with unraveling the factors responsible for changing coastal permafrost bluffs in the Arctic. Other/Unknown Material Arctic Beaufort Sea Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) Arctic Environmental Research Letters 13 11 115001 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) |
op_collection_id |
ftosti |
language |
unknown |
topic |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
spellingShingle |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Jones, Benjamin M. Farquharson, Louise M. Baughman, Carson A. Buzard, Richard M. Arp, Christopher D. Grosse, Guido Bull, Diana L. Günther, Frank Nitze, Ingmar Urban, Frank Kasper, Jeremy L. Frederick, Jennifer M. Thomas, Matthew Jones, Craig Mota, Alejandro Dallimore, Scott Tweedie, Craig Maio, Christopher Mann, Daniel H. Richmond, Bruce Gibbs, Ann Xiao, Ming Sachs, Torsten Iwahana, Go Kanevskiy, Mikhail Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
topic_facet |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
description |
We report that eroding permafrost coasts are likely indicators and integrators of changes in the Arctic System as they are susceptible to the combined effects of declining sea ice extent, increases in open water duration, more frequent and impactful storms, sea-level rise, and warming permafrost. However, few observation sites in the Arctic have yet to link decadal-scale erosion rates with changing environmental conditions due to temporal data gaps. This study increases the temporal fidelity of coastal permafrost bluff observations using near-annual high spatial resolution (<1 m) satellite imagery acquired between 2008–2017 for a 9 km segment of coastline at Drew Point, Beaufort Sea coast, Alaska. Our results show that mean annual erosion for the 2007–2016 decade was 17.2 m yr -1 , which is 2.5 times faster than historic rates, indicating that bluff erosion at this site is likely responding to changes in the Arctic System. In spite of a sustained increase in decadal-scale mean annual erosion rates, mean open water season erosion varied from 6.7 m yr -1 in 2010 to more than 22.0 m yr -1 in 2007, 2012, and 2016. This variability provided a range of coastal responses through which we explored the different roles of potential environmental drivers. The lack of significant correlations between mean open water season erosion and the environmental variables compiled in this study indicates that we may not be adequately capturing the environmental forcing factors, that the system is conditioned by long-term transient effects or extreme weather events rather than annual variability, or that other not yet considered factors may be responsible for the increased erosion occurring at Drew Point. Finally, our results highlight an increase in erosion at Drew Point in the 21st century as well as the complexities associated with unraveling the factors responsible for changing coastal permafrost bluffs in the Arctic. |
author |
Jones, Benjamin M. Farquharson, Louise M. Baughman, Carson A. Buzard, Richard M. Arp, Christopher D. Grosse, Guido Bull, Diana L. Günther, Frank Nitze, Ingmar Urban, Frank Kasper, Jeremy L. Frederick, Jennifer M. Thomas, Matthew Jones, Craig Mota, Alejandro Dallimore, Scott Tweedie, Craig Maio, Christopher Mann, Daniel H. Richmond, Bruce Gibbs, Ann Xiao, Ming Sachs, Torsten Iwahana, Go Kanevskiy, Mikhail Romanovsky, Vladimir E. |
author_facet |
Jones, Benjamin M. Farquharson, Louise M. Baughman, Carson A. Buzard, Richard M. Arp, Christopher D. Grosse, Guido Bull, Diana L. Günther, Frank Nitze, Ingmar Urban, Frank Kasper, Jeremy L. Frederick, Jennifer M. Thomas, Matthew Jones, Craig Mota, Alejandro Dallimore, Scott Tweedie, Craig Maio, Christopher Mann, Daniel H. Richmond, Bruce Gibbs, Ann Xiao, Ming Sachs, Torsten Iwahana, Go Kanevskiy, Mikhail Romanovsky, Vladimir E. |
author_sort |
Jones, Benjamin M. |
title |
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
title_short |
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
title_full |
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
title_fullStr |
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
A decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the Arctic |
title_sort |
decade of remotely sensed observations highlight complex processes linked to coastal permafrost bluff erosion in the arctic |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485841 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1485841 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Beaufort Sea Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska |
genre_facet |
Arctic Beaufort Sea Ice permafrost Sea ice Alaska |
op_relation |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1485841 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1485841 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aae471 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
13 |
container_issue |
11 |
container_start_page |
115001 |
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1772811823269019648 |