An official website of the United States government
{"Abstract":["Lakes are abundant features on coastal plains of the Arctic and most are termed "thermokarst" because they form in ice-rich permafrost and gradually expand over time. The dynamic nature of thermokarst lakes also makes them prone to catastrophic drainage and abrupt conversion to wetlands, called drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs). Together, thermokarst lakes and DTLBs cover up to 80% of arctic lowland regions, making understanding their response to ongoing climate change essential for coastal plain environmental assessment. Datasets presented here document water level and temperature (surface and ground) regimes for a large (38 sites) array of lake with high drainage potential and lake basin (DTLBS), which have already drained, located on differing terrain units of Alaska's Arctic Coastal Plain. Lake data was measured along deep protected shorelines using pressure transducers to record hourly water level and bed temperature. Wetland (DTLB) data was also measured with pressure transducers and ground thermistors at 25 and 100 centimeters (cm) depth. Of special interest at some DTLB sites was the potential occurrence of snow-dam outburst events during the early summer snowmelt periods. In these cases, pressure transducers were set to log at 10 minute intervals for this period. All data archived here are summarized at daily average values."]}
more »
« less
Snow depth survey in North Slope, Alaska, 2022
This is the field measured snow depth data using an automatic snow depth probe (magnaprobe, Snow-Hydro LCC) in April 19 - May 7, 2022 in North Slope, Alaska. The data are in csv format (comma delimited text format with geographical coordinate, WGS 84, and UTM zone 5). The goal of this research project is to quantify the role of thermokarst lake drainage and drained thermokarst lake basin (DTLB) evolution in the arctic system. The joint research team (University of Alaska, Fairbanks, University of Wyoming, and Michigan Technological University) spent several days based in Utqiagvik (Western Coastal Plain) and rest of days in Teshekpuk Lake (Central Coastal Plain). During the travel, manual snow survey was conducted using the mangaprobe to quantify the snowdrift around thermokarst lakes and other land features as complementary to the geophysical and remote sensed snowpack characterizations.
more »
« less
- Award ID(s):
- 1806213
- PAR ID:
- 10473688
- Publisher / Repository:
- NSF Arctic Data Center
- Date Published:
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- snow depth magnaprobe
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract. Thermokarst lake dynamics, which play an essential role in carbon releasedue to permafrost thaw, are affected by various geomorphological processes.In this study, we derive a three-dimensional (3D) Stefan equation tocharacterize talik geometry under a hypothetical thermokarst lake in thecontinuous permafrost region. Using the Euler equation in the calculus ofvariations, the lower bounds of the talik were determined as an extremum ofthe functional describing the phase boundary area with a fixed total talikvolume. We demonstrate that the semi-ellipsoid geometry of the talik isoptimal for minimizing the total permafrost thaw under the lake for a givenannual heat supply. The model predicting ellipsoidal talik geometry wascompared to talik thickness observations using transient electromagnetic(TEM) soundings in Peatball Lake on the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) ofnorthern Alaska. The depth : width ratio of the elliptical sub-lake talik cancharacterize the energy flux anisotropy in the permafrost, although the lakebathymetry cross section may not be elliptic due to the presence ofnear-surface ice-rich permafrost. This theory suggests that talikdevelopment deepens lakes and results in more uniform horizontal lakeexpansion around the perimeter of the lakes, while wind-induced waves andcurrents are likely responsible for the elongation and orientation ofshallow thermokarst lakes without taliks in certain regions such as the ACPof northern Alaska.more » « less
-
This data set covers the younger outer coastal plain north of Teshekpuk Lake, North Slope, Alaska. In this region, drained lake basins are abundant features, covering large parts of the landscape. This data set is based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery acquired in August 2010, and a 5 meter (m) resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IfSAR)-derived digital terrain model. Drained lake basins were manually delineated in a geographic information system (GIS). The data set includes Lake 195, which drained in this area in 2014. For further details please see Jones et al. (2015): Jones, BM, and Arp, CD (2015), Observing a Catastrophic Thermokarst Lake Drainage in Northern Alaska. Permafrost and Periglac. Process., 26, 119– 128. doi: 10.1002/ppp.1842.more » « less
-
This data set covers the younger outer coastal plain north of Teshekpuk Lake, North Slope, Alaska. In this region, drained lake basins are abundant features, covering large parts of the landscape. This data set is based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery acquired in August 2010, and a 5 meter (m) resolution Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (IfSAR)-derived digital terrain model. Drained lake basins were manually delineated in a geographic information system (GIS). The data set includes Lake 195, which drained in this area in 2014. For further details please see Jones et al. (2015): Jones, BM, and Arp, CD (2015), Observing a Catastrophic Thermokarst Lake Drainage in Northern Alaska. Permafrost and Periglac. Process., 26, 119– 128. doi: 10.1002/ppp.1842.more » « less
-
Lakes are abundant features on coastal plains of the Arctic, providing important fish and wildlife habitat and water supply for villages and industry, but also interact with frozen ground (permafrost) and the carbon it stores. Most of these lakes are termed "thermokarst" because they form in ice-rich permafrost and gradually expand over time. The dynamic nature of thermokarst lakes also makes them prone to catastrophic drainage and abrupt conversion to wetlands, called drained thermokarst lake basins (DTLBs). Together, thermokarst lakes and DTLBs cover up to 80% of arctic lowland regions, making understanding their response to ongoing climate change essential for coastal plain environmental assessment. Dating the timing of lake drainage can improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of DTLB formation. This suite of 14C (Carbon-14) ages provides insight into the timing of lake drainage on the North Slope of Alaska across a range of ecosystems and surficial geology types.more » « less
