Arctic landscape dynamics: modern processes and pleistocene legacies

• Main Author: Farquharson, Louise M.
• Other Authors: Mann, Daniel, Romanovsky, Vladimir, Grosse, Guido, Jones, Benjamin M., Swanson, David
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: Physical geography; Arctic regions; Ice sheets; Arctic Ocean; Climatic changes; Arctic; Fairbanks; Arctic Basin; arctic cryosphere; Climate change; glaciers; Ice; Ice Sheet; north slope; permafrost; Sea ice; Thermokarst; Alaska
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11122/8121

Dissertation (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017 The Arctic Cryosphere (AC) is sensitive to rapid climate changes. The response of glaciers, sea ice, and permafrost-influenced landscapes to warming is complicated by polar amplification of global climate change which is caused by the presence of thresholds in the physics of energy exchange occurring around the freezing point of water. To better understand how the AC has and will respond to warming climate, we need to understand landscape processes that are operating and interacting across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. This dissertation presents three studies from Arctic Alaska that use a combination of field surveys, sedimentology, geochronology and remote sensing to explore various AC responses to climate change in the distant and recent past. The following questions are addressed in this dissertation: 1) How does the AC respond to large scale fluctuations in climate on Pleistocene glacial-interglacial time scales? 2) How do legacy effects relating to Pleistocene landscape dynamics inform us about the vulnerability of modern land systems to current climate warming? and 3) How are coastal systems influenced by permafrost and buffered from wave energy by seasonal sea ice currently responding to ongoing climate change? Chapter 2 uses sedimentology and geochronology to document the extent and timing of ice-sheet glaciation in the Arctic Basin during the penultimate interglacial period. Chapter 3 uses a combination of surficial geology mapping and remote sensing to explore the distribution and vulnerability of modern day landscapes on the North Slope of Alaska to thermokarst caused by rapid warming. Chapter 4 uses high spatial and temporal resolution remote sensing data and field surveys to show how sea ice decline is causing AC coastlines to become more geomorphologically dynamic. Together the results of this research show that the AC is a highly dynamic system that can respond to climate warming in complex and non-linear ways. Chapter 2 ...