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8.21 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained BasinsG Grosse, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USAB Jones, Alaska Science Center, Anchorage, AK, USAC Arp, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, USA
r 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
8.21.1 Permafrost and Thermokarst Lakes in the Arctic and Subarctic 326
8.21.2 Regional and Global Importance of Thermokarst Lakes 326 8.21.3 Distribution of Thermokarst Lakes in the Arctic and Subarctic 328 8.21.4 Thermokarst Lake Formation and Morphology 331 8.21.5 Hydrological Dynamics of Thermokarst Lakes 336 8.21.6 Oriented Thermokarst Lakes 338 8.21.7 Drainage of Thermokarst Lakes 340 8.21.8 Drained Thermokarst Lake Basins and Thermokarst Lake Cycle 345 8.21.9 Outlook 348 Acknowledgments 349 References 349Gr
dra
(E
Gl
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Glossary�Catastrophic thermokarst lake drainage Rapid drainage
of a thermokarst lake within a few days up to several weeks
caused by external factors, such as coastal erosion, river
tapping, surface permafrost degradation; or lake overflow;
or internal factors, such as thermal erosion of lake banks or
penetration of the permafrost by the lake’s talik.
Cryosphere A part of the Earth’s crust or hydrosphere
subjected to temperatures below 0 1C for at least a part of
each year.�Drained thermokarst lake basin A large depression of
the ground surface produced by a thermokarst lake that
subsequently drained.
Excess ice The volume of ice in the ground which exceeds
the total pore volume that the ground would have under
natural unfrozen conditions.
Frozen ground Soil or rock in which part or all of the
pore water has turned into ice.
Ground ice A general term referring to all types of ice
contained in freezing and frozen ground.
Ground thermal regime A general term encompassing the
temperature distribution and heat flows in the ground and
their time dependence.
Ice wedge A massive, generally wedge-shaped body with
its apex pointing downward, composed of foliated or
vertically banded, commonly white, ice.
Ice-rich permafrost Permafrost containing excess ice.
osse, G., Jones, B., Arp, C., 2013. Thermokarst lakes, drainage, and
ined basins. In: Shroder, J. (Editor in Chief), Giardino, R., Harbor, J.
ds.), Treatise on Geomorphology. Academic Press, San Diego, CA, vol. 8,
acial and Periglacial Geomorphology, pp. 325–353.
atise on Geomorphology, Volume 8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-3747
Oriented lakes A group of lakes possessing a common,
preferred, long-axis orientation.
Permafrost Ground (soil or rock and included ice and
organic material) that remains at or below 0 1C for at least 2
consecutive years.
Talik A layer or body of unfrozen ground occurring in a
permafrost area due to a local anomaly in thermal,
hydrological, hydrogeological, or hydrochemical
conditions.
Thaw bulb See Talik. Usually found under large lakes and
rivers in permafrost regions.
Thaw settlement/thaw consolidation Time-dependent
compression resulting from thawing of frozen ground and
subsequent draining of excess water.
Thermoerosion The erosion of ice-bearing permafrost by
the combined thermal and mechanical action of moving
water.
Thermokarst The process by which characteristic
landforms result from the thawing of ice-rich permafrost or
the melting of massive ice.
Thermokarst lake A lake occupying a closed depression
formed by settlement of the ground following thawing of
ice-rich permafrost or the melting of massive ice.
All these terms, except where marked with �, were directly
taken from the English Language Glossary of Permafrost
and Related Ground ice Terms (van Everdingen, 2005).
Abstract
Thermokarst lakes and drained lake basins are widespread in Arctic and sub-Arctic permafrost lowlands with ice-richsediments. Thermokarst lake formation is a dominant mode of permafrost degradation and is linked to surface disturbance,
subsequent melting of ground ice, surface subsidence, water impoundment, and positive feedbacks between lake growth
39-6.00216-5 325
326 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
and permafrost thaw, whereas lake drainage generally results in local permafrost aggradation. Thermokarst lakes charac-teristically have unique limnological, morphological, and biogeochemical characteristics that are closely tied to cold-
climate conditions and permafrost properties. Thermokarst lakes also have a tendency toward complete or partial drainage
through permafrost degradation and erosion. Thermokarst lake dynamics strongly affect the development of landscape
geomorphology, hydrology, and the habitat characteristic of permafrost lowlands.
8.21.1 Permafrost and Thermokarst Lakes in theArctic and Subarctic
Approximately 24% of the northern land surface is located in
permafrost zones (Brown et al., 1997; Zhang et al., 1999).
Permafrost, defined as the ground that remains at or below
0 1C for more than two years, can be differentiated by its
spatial extent into continuous (90–100%), discontinuous
(50–90%), sporadic (10–50%), and isolated (0–10%)
permafrost, as well as by its thickness, the amount of ground
ice present, and its temperature. A large portion of the
northern permafrost zone in North Siberia, Alaska, and
Northwest Canada consists of lowlands between 0 and 300 m
above the sea level that contain ground ice-rich deposits that
accumulated in unglaciated regions for several thousand to
tens of thousands of years (Schirrmeister et al., 2011; Pewe,
1975; Fraser and Burn, 1997). Ground ice in these regions
consists of massive ice bodies, such as large ice wedges, pingo
ice cores, or massive segregated ice lenses, and pore ice in
small ice lenses and ice bands. With the last deglaciation
starting after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 21 kyrs BP)
(Ehlers and Gibbard, 2003), permafrost started to degrade,
resulting in the near-surface melt of ground ice in vast regions
(Pewe, 1973; Velichko et al., 2002). In other, previously gla-
ciated regions, retreat of ice sheets and glaciers left remnant ice
bodies buried by glacial moraines. Formerly, part of the glacial
ice in northern central Siberia and many regions in north-
western Canada, these massive ice bodies first became part of
permafrost and then started to melt, forming kettle lakes,
which can also be considered a type of thermokarst lake (e.g.,
Henriksen et al., 2003). A period of pronounced permafrost
degradation occurred at the transition between the Late
Pleistocene and the early Holocene, when many regions in the
Arctic went through a strong warming and wetting trend,
peaking during the Holocene Thermal Maximum (between
5–11 kyrs BP, depending on the region) (Kaufman et al., 2004;
Mann et al., 2002; Velichko et al., 2002). Permafrost degrad-
ation is a complex process involving long-term interactions
among climate, hydrology, ecosystems, and geology, and
short-term disturbances, all with a competing influence on
the ground thermal regime and thus permafrost stability
(Jorgenson et al., 2010).
A typical form of permafrost degradation involves the
formation and growth of ‘thermokarst lakes’ (Wallace, 1948;
Hopkins, 1949; Soloviev, 1950), defined as lakes that usually
occupy closed depressions formed by the settlement of ground
following thawing of ice-rich permafrost or melting of massive
ice (van Everdingen, 1998). Synonymous terms for these lakes
occurring in older literature and not recommended for use
anymore are ‘thaw lakes’ and ‘cave-in lakes’ (van Everdingen,
1998).
During the Late Pleistocene–Holocene transition and espe-
cially the Holocene Thermal Maximum, the formation of ther-
mokarst lakes was widespread in Arctic and sub-Arctic lowland
regions with ice-rich permafrost (Rampton, 1988; Walter et al.,
2007a). Today, northern lowland permafrost regions are dotted
with tens of thousands of thermokarst lakes and remnant
basins that resulted from partial or complete drainage of lakes
(Figures 1 and 2). Thermokarst lakes have their largest distri-
bution in Arctic, sub-Arctic, and Boreal lowland regions with
ice-rich unconsolidated sediment deposits. However, thermo-
karst lakes can also occur in perennially frozen peat lands (e.g.,
Sannel and Brown, 2010), refrozen glaciolacustrine deposits
(Lauriol et al., 2009), poorly consolidated and ice-rich bedrock,
such as ice-rich shale on the Canadian Shield (see Figure 8.10B
in French, 2007), in alpine permafrost, such as mountain valleys
and plateaus (Kaeaeb and Haeberli, 2001; Harris, 2002; Lin
et al., 2010), and ice-cored moraines of various ages (Astakhov
and Isayeva, 1988; Henriksen et al., 2003).
In this section, we review the general distribution of ther-
mokarst lakes in the Northern Hemisphere, discuss results
from research on the life cycle of thermokarst lakes, including
formation, growth, and drainage, hydrological and morpho-
logical dynamics, and their role as geomorphological and
biogeochemical agents in permafrost landscapes.
8.21.2 Regional and Global Importance ofThermokarst Lakes
The Arctic terrestrial system is vulnerable to climate change
(Hinzman et al., 2005; Grosse et al., 2011). Permafrost, as one
of the most profound and widespread physical factors influ-
encing hydrology, ecosystems, and biogeochemical cycles in
the northern high latitudes, has been warming and thawing in
many regions for several decades and is predicted to continue
on this trajectory in this century (Romanovsky et al., 2010).
However, as opposed to relatively slow and gradual top-down
permafrost thaw, thermokarst lake formation and growth
provides a mechanism for deep and rapid permafrost deg-
radation. Even though thermokarst lake formation represents
a localized disturbance to the ground thermal regime, the
widespread occurrence of such features in most permafrost
regions cumulatively impacts large areas.
Thermokarst lakes strongly influence the surface energy
balance in permafrost regions with feedbacks on the ground
thermal regime (Brewer, 1958; Brown et al., 1964; Jeffries et al.,
1999; Burn 2002, 2005; Jorgenson et al., 2010) and land–
atmosphere energy exchange (Rouse et al., 2003). Thermokarst
lakes have also been identified as an important source for
atmospheric greenhouse gases, that is, carbon dioxide and
159°30′ W
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
158°30′ W
70°5
0′ N
66°4
0′ N
66°3
0′ N
66°4
0′ N
66°3
0′ N
70°
N69
°50′
N70
°10′
N70
° N
70°4
0′ N
62°2
0′ N
70°
N69
°50′
N 62°1
0′ N
62°2
0′ N
62°1
0′ N
70°1
0′ N
70°3
0′ N
70°3
0′ N
70°2
0′ N
70°2
0′ N
70°
N
70°5
0′ N
70°4
0′ N
159° W 156°30′ W157° W
131° W 131°30′ E131° E
156°30′ W157°30′ W158°30′ W
130°30′ W
159°30′ W 159° W
130° W
5 km5 km
157° W
159° E
131°30′ E
72° E71° E 71°30′ E
72° E71° E 71°30′ E
130° W
158°30′ E
131° W 130°30′ W
159° E
158° E 159°30′ E 159° E
131° E
5 km
5 km5 km
Figure 1 Landsat-5 TM satellite image subsets showing thermokarst lake-rich regions. (a) Selawik Wildlife Refuge, Interior Alaska; (b) NorthSlope Coastal Plain, Alaska; (c) Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, NW Canada; (d) Central Yakutia, Siberia; (e) Chukochya River region, NE Siberia; and (f)Yamal Peninsula, NW Siberia. All images are RGB false color composites using bands 5-4-3 at the same map scale. Landsat image. Reproducedfrom USGS EROS Data Center/NASA.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 327
methane (Kling et al., 1991; Zimov et al., 1997). Anaerobic
environments in thermokarst lake bottoms and thawed sedi-
ments beneath lakes result in the microbial decomposition of
organic matter and methane production that contribute as a
northern methane source to the current atmospheric carbon
budget (Walter et al., 2006). Similarly, past atmospheric me-
thane budgets were strongly influenced (Walter et al., 2007a)
and future budgets are also projected to be impacted by ther-
mokarst lakes in a warmer Arctic (Walter et al., 2007b).
Thermokarst lakes in the Arctic also provide habitat for
fish and migratory birds (Vincent and Hobbie, 2000;
Alerstam et al., 2001). The mosaic of extant lakes and
drained basins of varying age creates a diverse landscape im-
portant for wildlife. Finally, thermokarst lakes are extensively
Figure 2 Oblique aerial photos of thermokarst lakes in different Arctic and Subarctic regions: (a) Denali National Park, Alaska; (b) Kolymalowland, Siberia; (c) Lena river delta, Siberia (Photo: G. Schwamborn, AWI Potsdam); (d) northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska; (e) North Slope,Alaska; (f) Mackenzie Delta, NW of Inuvik, N.W.T., Canada (Photo: H. Lantuit, AWI Potsdam.).
328 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
used for human purposes as a residential freshwater source in
northern communities (Boyd, 1959; Dmitriev and Tolstikhin,
1971; Heinke and Deans, 1973; Martin et al., 2007; Alessa
et al., 2008), as an industrial water source for mineral and
hydrocarbon resource exploration and development and
winter ice road construction (Sibley et al., 2008; Jones et al.,
2009), and as fishing and hunting grounds in the subsistence
lifestyle of many people in remote northern communities
(Vincent and Hobbie, 2000; Berkes and Jolly, 2001).
8.21.3 Distribution of Thermokarst Lakes in theArctic and Subarctic
Approximately one-quarter of lakes on Earth occur in the
northern high latitudes (Figure 3), according to the Global
Lake and Wetland Database (GLWD) (Lehner and Doll,
2004). The distribution of lakes in the Arctic is largely
controlled by the presence of permafrost as well as glacial
history (Mostakhov, 1973; Smith et al., 2007) (Figure 4).
0
−50
−40
−30
−20
−10
0
10Latit
ude 20
30
40
50
60
70
80
5000 10 000 15 000
Lake area (km2)
20 000
Continuous PF
Discontinuous PF
Sporadic PF
Isolated PF
No permafrost
25 000 30 000
Figure 3 Plot of global lake area distribution as a function of latitude. The majority of the Earth’s lake area occurs in high northern latitudes,and here, the majority of lakes are located in permafrost regions (bins are 11 latitude wide).
30° E 30° W
30°
N30
° N
0°
150° W180° 150° E
30°
N40
° N
40°
N
Medium ground ice content (10−20%)
High ground ice content (>20%)
Continuous, cold permafrost
Discontinuous, warm permafrost
Glaciers
Lakes
LGM ice sheet extent
Potential thermokarst lakes
Figure 4 Pan-Arctic map showing probable thermokarst lake regions. Lake cover (Lehner and Doll, 2004) in the high northern latitudes isstrongly aligned with permafrost (Brown et al., 1997) distribution and glaciation history (Ehlers and Gibbard, 2003).
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 329
30° E 0° 30° W
20°
N20
° N
Lake density>0−0.020.02−0.060.06−0.120.12−0.250.25−0.420.42−0.60.6−1
120° W150° W180°150° E
40°
N40
° N
Figure 5 Lake area fraction in northern high latitudes based on 5 km grid cells and the Global Lake and Wetland Database (Lehner and Doll, 2004).
100
(a) (b) (c)
50 0 100 m 100 50 0 100 m 100 50 0 100 m 200319781950
Figure 6 Time series of ortho-recitified aerial imagery showing thermokarst lake formation in ice-rich permafrost on the northern SewardPeninsula, Alaska, between 1950 and 2003 (Image dataset ortho-rectified by Manley et al., 2007a, b, c).
330 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
Smith et al. (2007) found that 148 300 lakes 410 ha are lo-
cated in permafrost regions north at 45.51 latitude (excluding
Greenland), covering a total area of 414 400 km2. The general
distribution of thermokarst lakes in Alaska, Russia, and Can-
ada is known from a number of regional lake studies and
maps in various levels of details (Alaska: e.g., Sellmann et al.,
1975; Duguay and Lafleur, 2003; Frohn et al., 2005; Hinkel
et al., 2005; Jorgenson and Shur, 2007; Arp and Jones, 2008;
Russia: e.g., Mostakhov, 1973; Are, 1974; Vtyurin, 1974;
Tomirdiaro and Ryabchun, 1978; Lyubomirov, 1990;
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
Ice-rich permafrostwith ice wedges
Lake talik
Water (lake)
Trees
Terrain surfacePermafrost table
Figure 7 Thermokarst lake formation in ice-rich permafrost in theboreal zone of central Siberia. (a, b) In an initial stage ice wedgesstart degrading, forming a hummocky surface. (c) Water can pool indegrading ice wedge troughs and small ponds form that thencoalesce. (d) A small lake has formed by coalescence of a number ofponds and a talik is developing under the deepening lake. (e) A largethermokarst lake with deep talik has formed.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 331
Anan’eva, 2000; Morgenstern et al., 2011; Canada: e.g., Mac-
kay, 1963; Harry and French, 1983; Burn and Smith, 1990;
Burn, 2002; Cote and Burn, 2002; Turner et al., 2010). For
many of these studies, high- to medium-resolution remote
sensing data, such as vertical aerial imagery or multispectral
Landsat data (Figure 1) or synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
imagery, were used to map and characterize lakes. However,
despite these regional studies and the increasing availability of
remote sensing and field data, there are currently no detailed
pan-Arctic maps of thermokarst lake and basin distribution
available.
The probable distribution of thermokarst lakes aligns fairly
well with permafrost-dominated lowland regions with high to
moderate ground ice content and a thick sediment cover
(Figure 4) (e.g., Mostakhov, 1973). According to maps of
permafrost distribution (Brown et al., 1997) and past glacial
extent (Ehlers and Gibbard, 2003), such lowlands primarily
include regions that were not glaciated during the LGM, such
as Central, North and Northeast Siberia, Interior and North
Alaska, Northwest Canada, but also some previously glaciated
regions where remnant, buried glacial ice bodies exist, such as
the Hudson Bay Lowlands in Canada, other areas in North-
west Canada, and the Yamal, Gydan, and Taymyr peninsulas
in Siberia. Thus, a first-order estimate of the number and total
area of large thermokarst lakes can be derived from analysis of
lakes in such regions using existing pan-Arctic lake (Lehner
and Doll, 2004) and permafrost databases (Brown et al.,
1997).
We found that more than 61 000 natural lakes 410 ha
occur in permafrost regions with high to moderate ground ice
content (c. 41% of all lakes in permafrost regions), en-
compassing a total area of more than 207 000 km2 (c. 50% of
the total lake area in permafrost regions). The lake area frac-
tion, expressed as lake area per land area and calculated for
5 km grid cells across the Northern Hemisphere, exceeds 40%
in some of the thermokarst-affected lowland regions, in-
cluding portions of the Northeast Siberian coastal lowlands,
northern West Siberia, Alaska North Slope, Yukon-Kuskokwim
Delta region, and Mackenzie Delta region (Figure 5). Com-
parably high lake area fractions only occur in some formerly
glaciated areas with permafrost but with low sediment cover
and ground ice content (such as parts of northern Canada) or
without permafrost (such as parts of Finland or southern
Sweden).
Major sources of uncertainty in these estimates arise from
the scale at which global datasets on ground ice distribution,
sediment type and thickness, and lake extent are constructed.
For example, analysis of high-resolution remote sensing data
revealed that for three study areas with ice-rich permafrost in
Northeast Siberia, between 22% and 82% of the total ther-
mokarst lake area was not inventoried in the GLWD (Grosse
et al., 2008). If these regional analyses are indicative of other
thermokarst lake-rich regions in the pan-Arctic, a total ther-
mokarst lake and pond area of between 250 000 km2 and
380 000 km2 may be a more realistic estimate.
Further, these general analyses may also include lakes of
other primary origins (such as riverine or depression) that
initiate through nonthermokarst processes, but that also im-
pact surrounding permafrost terrain once initiated (Vtyurin,
1974; Jorgenson and Shur, 2007).
8.21.4 Thermokarst Lake Formation and Morphology
Thermokarst lakes are defined as lakes that occupy generally
closed depressions formed by the settlement of ground
20
15
10
5Central pool
Terrace
J F M A M J J A S O N D
0
Dai
ly m
ean
tem
pera
ture
(°C
)
−5
−10
−16
−20
−25
Figure 8 Lake water temperature regime for 2002 showing the difference in lake-bottom temperatures between deep central pool and shallowlittoral terrace of a lake on Richards Islands, N.W.T., Canada. Whereas the bottom temperature regime of the deep central pool with mean annualtemperatures of 3.5 1C allows the development of a talik, the sediments under the shallow terrace with mean annual temperatures of � 3.7 1Chave a shallow seasonal active layer underlain by permafrost. Reproduced from Burn, C.R., 2005. Lake-bottom thermal regimes, western Arcticcoast, Canada. Permafrost & Periglacial Processes 16, 355–367, with permission from Wiley.
Summer (without ice cover)
Autumn (before freeze-up)and early winter (first ice cover)
Winter (with ice cover)and spring (before ice cover)
Permafrost Lake water
Lake iceLake talik
Direction of heat flux
Figure 9 Schematic seasonal heat fluxes of thermokarst Lake Glubokoe (c. 12 m deep, 230 m long, and 110 m wide) and its talik in centralSiberia.
332 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
0Tundra
5
Hea
t flu
x (W
m−2
)
10
15
20
Grounded ice Floating ice
Land cover
Figure 10 Winter heat fluxes from lakes with floating ice (deepenough, and so liquid water present in winter), grounded ice (lakesfreeze to bottom), and adjacent tundra. The winter heat flux throughlake ice with liquid water under the ice is several times highercompared with ground ice lakes or tundra (heat flux data fromTable 4 in Jeffries, M.O., Zhang, T., Frey, K., Kozlenko, N., 1999.Estimating late-winter heat flow to the atmosphere from the lake-dominated Alaskan North Slope. Journal of Glaciology 45(150),315–324).
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 333
following thawing of ice-rich permafrost or melting of massive
ice (van Everdingen, 1998). Thermokarst lakes typically form
in areas where excess ground ice is present and the ice content
is above 30% by volume. Initial formation includes coales-
cence of ice-wedge trough ponds above melting ice-wedge
networks (Figure 6) or through broad but inhomogeneous
surface subsidence of ice-rich ground and gradual impound-
ment of water in coalescing and steadily growing ponds
(Soloviev, 1962; Czudek and Demek, 1970) (Figure 7).
Thermokarst lake formation can also result from the coales-
cence of ponds following breaching of low-centered,
ice-wedge polygon ramparts commonly occurring in lowland
Arctic landscapes (Britton 1957; Billings and Peterson, 1980).
Although some strict definitions limit the designation of
thermokarst lakes to those that form entirely due to perma-
frost degradation and surface subsidence (Jorgenson and Shur,
2007), other definitions are more loosely constrained and
allow for lakes that occupy depressions formed through
antecedent conditions (e.g., oxbow lakes, interdune lakes,
depression lakes), yet expand due to degradation of confining
permafrost (Hopkins, 1949). Due to the diversity in regional
preconditions, such as paleo-environmental and climatic his-
tory as well as geological and permafrost properties, thermo-
karst lakes show a remarkably rich morphological diversity
(Figures 1 and 2).
Water bodies in permafrost regions cause the greatest local
departure of ground temperatures from regional patterns de-
termined by climate, increasing sediment temperatures up to
10 1C above the mean annual air temperatures and allowing
permafrost under lakes to thaw even in high Arctic cold
permafrost regions (Brewer, 1958; Lachenbruch et al., 1962;
Smith, 1975; Jorgenson et al., 2010). Low albedo, absorption
of long-wave radiation, and a two times higher heat storage
capacity of water compared with ice and four times larger
when compared with dry ground, results in increased lake
water and mean annual lake-bottom temperatures at the
water–sediment interface. The long-term heat flux from the
water body into the ground allows thawing of the permafrost
and melting of ground ice underneath the lake, resulting in
volume loss, sediment compaction, lake-bottom subsidence,
and growth of the lake depth and basin volume. Once the
waterbody depth exceeds the maximum thickness of winter ice
cover, above-freezing, lake-bottom temperatures year-round
enhance thawing and talik growth. Data on the seasonal
temperature regime of lakes on Richards Island, Canada, re-
veal that lake-bottom temperatures on shallow littoral shelves
are considerably lower than in the deep central basin of the
same lake (Burn, 2002, 2005) (Figure 8), an effect related to
the fact that shelves freeze to the bottom in winter and have
negative mean annual bottom temperatures and deep pools
are covered with floating ice and have positive mean annual
bottom temperatures.
A fundamental process of thermokarst lake development is
the formation of the talik, or thaw bulb, underneath a lake for
which the mean annual lake-bottom temperatures are 0 1C or
above (e.g., Burn, 2002) (Figure 7). The typical annual heat
fluxes of a deep thermokarst lake show that the lake receives
heat energy from the atmosphere during summer that is then
dissipated in the water body and partially transferred to the
underlying and surrounding sediments of the talik and on-
wards across the thawing front into the permafrost (Vtyurina,
1960) (Figure 9). During autumn and early winter, the lake
cools rapidly while the upper zone of the talik can be warmer
than the lake water due to the late summer warmth pulse still
present in the talik sediment. This reverses the summer heat
flux at the water–sediment interface now pointing from talik
into the lake, while at the same time heat is still transferred
from the talik into the permafrost. In winter, lakes emit heat
into the atmosphere (even through the ice cover) while
maintaining heat transfer into the talik, which continues to
expand by transferring heat into the permafrost. This positive
winter-time heat flux from lakes through the lake ice into the
atmosphere has been shown for instance by Jeffries et al.
(1999) for the Alaska North Slope (Figure 10). Clearly, heat
fluxes from the water body into the talik dominate, with the
exception of a brief autumn period. Remarkably, heat fluxes
always point from the talik into the permafrost, effectively
expanding the thawed zone year-round, aiding in warming
and degradation of adjacent permafrost, lake-bottom settle-
ment, and lake basin subsidence and expansion. The growth
of the lake, given sufficient water supply from ground ice or
meteoric water, is a positive feedback to this cycle by in-
creasing the heat storage capacity of the water body.
A variety of mechanical and geophysical methods have
been used to test the presence and measure the dimensions of
taliks under thermokarst lakes, including long metal probes
that are hammered into the thawed zone until permafrost is
encountered, deep boreholes in which ground temperatures
are measured (e.g., Johnston and Brown, 1966; Are, 1973; Lin
et al., 2010), and electric resistivity and shallow seismic
methods, which are capable of imaging the physical differ-
ences between thawed and frozen sediments (Schwamborn
et al., 2002a, b; Nolan et al., 2009) (Figure 11).
S N
0
30
70
Tim
e (m
s)
110
Multiple
Water 5.0 m
Basin sediments 1.5 m
~ 95 m talik
Permafrost
~150 m
Figure 11 Shallow seismic profile of thermokarst Lake Nikolai and its talik in sandy deposits on Arga-Muore-Sise island in the Lena Delta,Siberia. The boundary between frozen und unfrozen sediment is characterized by a prominent curved reflector. Reproduced from Schwamborn,G., Andreev, A.A., Rachold, V., et al., 2002a. Evolution of Lake Nikolay, Arga Island, western Lena River delta, during late Pleistocene andHolocene time. Polarforschung 70, 69–82.
334 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
Numerical modeling has also been used to determine the
dimensions of lake taliks and the characteristics of the ground
thermal regime below thermokarst lakes. Burn (2002) mod-
eled lake and talik thermal regimes on Richards Island in the
Mackenzie Delta region and found that taliks of many lakes
with deep central basins penetrate the permafrost in this re-
gion. Ling and Zhang (2003) have shown that even shallow
thermokarst lakes are a significant heat source to permafrost
and taliks on the Alaska North Slope. For their example of a
shallow thermokarst lake on the Alaska Arctic coastal plain,
they modeled maximum talik thicknesses at c. 28, 43, and
53 m about 3000 years after the formation of the lake with
long-term mean lake-bottom temperatures of 1 1C, 2 1C, and
3 1C, respectively. In their model, no talik formed below a lake
with a long-term mean lake-bottom temperature equal to or
lower than 0.0 1C, a threshold that has been observed by field
temperature measurements in other regions (e.g., Burn, 2002).
However, the temperature of permafrost below the thermo-
karst lakes still increased with time. Lake drainage (see Section
8.21.7), on the contrary, will result in the refreezing of the
talik. The freeze-up process progresses much faster than the
thawing under the lake. The same taliks, described above
would, after complete lake drainage, freeze up within 40, 106,
and 157 years, respectively, under Barrow (Alaska) climate
conditions (Ling and Zhang, 2004). West and Plug (2008)
further developed the modeling of thermokarst lakes and their
taliks by first considering various settings of ground ice dis-
tribution and then including mass wasting processes along the
lake shores (Plug and West, 2009). In a modeling scenario of
non-expanding lakes of identical dimensions, West and Plug
(2008) found that lakes set within substrate with higher
thermal diffusivities (e.g., ice-rich vs. ice-poor substrate or ice-
rich mineral vs. ice-rich and organic-rich substrate) develop
thicker taliks, resulting in deeper lakes (Figure 12).
Once initiated, thermokarst lakes also tend to grow lat-
erally by thermal and mechanical erosion into adjacent
ice-rich permafrost deposits and soils. Lateral expansion of
thermokarst lakes is evidenced by slumping shorelines, much
of which is related to thermal degradation of the surrounding
ground in the form of melting ice wedges or other massive ice
Substrate III
Substrate II
Reference substrate
60
50
40
30
20Ta
lik th
ickn
ess
(m)
10
0
25
20
15
10
Take
dep
th (
m)
5
0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
0 1000 2000 3000 4000Model years
5000 6000 7000 8000
Substrate I
Figure 12 Graph showing modeling results for the development of talik thickness and lake depth under different scenarios of thermal diffusivity.Substrate I is an ice-rich soil (30% more ground ice than reference substrate); substrate II is ice and organic rich; and substrate III is a mineralsoil with 10% less ground ice than in the reference substrate. Substrates with higher frozen thermal diffusivities develop thicker taliks and deeperlakes in a model scenario of non-expanding lakes of identical dimensions. Reproduced from West, J.J., Plug, L.J., 2008. Time-dependentmorphology of thaw lakes and taliks in deep and shallow ground ice. Journal of Geophysical Research 113, F01009.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 335
bodies (Figure 13). Expansion rates observed with remote
sensing methods over decadal scales are largely in the range
from 0.3 to 0.8 m yr�1 (Lewellen, 1970; Are et al., 1979; Burn
and Smith, 1990; Jorgenson and Shur, 2007; Jones et al.,
2011), but higher rates of several m/yr do occur locally (e.g.,
Jones et al., 2011). A variety of largely erosive shoreline pro-
cesses are typical for thermokarst lakes (e.g., Are et al., 1979;
Lyubomirov, 1977, 1990) including: (1) wave action in the
summer leading to the development of thermo-mechanic
erosional niches (e.g., Tedrow, 1969); (2) over-steepening of
lake banks above and below the water level due to thaw
subsidence, resulting in increased mass wasting through thaw
slumps and block failures (e.g., Tomirdiaro and Ryabchun,
1974; Kokelj et al., 2009a); (3) ice-shove during the period of
lake ice break-up mechanically eroding banks that can disturb
the surrounding tundra surfaces along low banks by removing
insulating vegetation of soil organic layers; (4) floating vege-
tation or peat mats forming on some lake margins (e.g., Kane
and Slaughter, 1973); (5) large retrogressive thaw slumps ex-
posing massive ice bodies and sending mudflows into lakes
(e.g., Kokelj et al., 2009b); (6) trees, other vegetation, soil and
peat layers, and sediments toppling or slumping into the lakes
along eroding shorelines (e.g., Burn and Smith, 1988; Oster-
kamp et al., 2000); and (7) if low banks and low-center ice-
wedge polygons are present in the surrounding terrain, lake
growth can take place by incorporation of polygonal ponds
into the lake (e.g., Britton, 1957; Billings and Peterson, 1980).
Depending on the local conditions, these shoreline processes
are not uniformly distributed around a lake, resulting in
preferential erosion and growth, which may include processes
of lake orientation (see Section 8.21.6) and lake migration
(e.g., Sukhodrovskiy, 1960; Tedrow, 1969). Lateral expansion
of thermokarst lakes, with specific shoreline processes such as
thaw slumping, and ice-wedge melting as well as lake-bottom
subsidence, result in characteristic sedimentation patterns and
stratigraphy in thermokarst lakes (Murton, 1996).
A range of lake morphotypes exist, which have been re-
gionally classified and related to permafrost characteristics,
surficial geology, drainage patterns, and landscape age (e.g.,
Sellmann et al., 1975; Jorgenson and Shur, 2007). Such field
bathymetric mapping efforts have been spatially extended
using remote-sensing techniques, particularly SAR to dis-
tinguish lakes with bedfast ice and lakes with floating ice
(Jeffries et al., 1996). The depth that thermokarst lakes attain
is controlled by the amount and distribution of ground-ice in
the substrate, which in turn is related to depositional, thermal,
and moisture history (Hopkins and Kidd, 1988). Thermokarst
lakes range in size by orders of magnitude within and among
various regions of the Arctic (Figure 14), from small lakes
about 100 m in diameter to some very large lakes exceeding
15 km in diameter occurring in several regions of the North
Siberian coastal plains. In regions where epigenetic permafrost
occurs (i.e., Arctic lowland regions with numerous thermo-
karst lake generations, such as the Alaska Arctic coastal plain),
thermokarst lakes tend to be shallow due to minimal near-
surface segregation ice and shallow ice wedges. In regions
where syngenetic permafrost with large and deep ice wedges
(such as Siberian Yedoma regions) or where thick massive ice
bodies of glacial or other origin occur (such as regions in the
Northwest Territories of Canada), thermokarst lakes may
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
(e) (f)
Figure 13 Typical shoreline erosional processes on thermokarst lakes. (a) Trees toppling into thermokarst lake in the boreal zone aroundCherskii, NE Siberia; (b) Moat with floating vegetation mat on a thermokarst lake in Kobuk River Valley, Alaska; (c) Exposed ice wedge andthermo-erosional niche at lake shore bank, Alaska North Slope; (d) Rapidly eroding lake bluff at Cape Chukochy, NE Siberia; (e) Ice push featureson lake shore, Alaska North Slope; (f) Oblique aerial photograph of a retrogressive thaw slump located adjacent to a thermokarst lake in theNoatak River Valley, Alaska, USA. Photo: K. Hill, National Park Service.
336 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
approach depths of 25 m. The current depth of a given ther-
mokarst lake can be considered to be a function of landscape
history and local relief as well as the amount and distribution
of ground-ice and the age of the lake (Figures 12 and 14)
(West and Plug, 2008). In some regions, such as Arga Island in
the Lena Delta, thermokarst lakes have a distinct deep central
basin surrounded by a shallow littoral shelf (Schwamborn
et al., 2002b), whereas lakes in other regions have shallow flat-
bottomed basins or deep bowl-like basins (Figure 14).
8.21.5 Hydrological Dynamics of Thermokarst Lakes
The storage of water in thermokarst lakes is maintained by a
balance of water supplied from spring snowmelt and summer
rainfall as well as the contribution of ground-ice and removed
by evaporation with substantial variation in these fluxes over
short Arctic summers (Bowling et al., 2003; Pohl et al., 2007)
(Figures 15 and 16). Watershed contributions to lake water
balance depend considerably on drainage area size, with large
seasonal changes driven by active layer thickness, regulating
runoff amount and timing (Quinton and Marsh, 1999).
Runoff delivered directly by streamflow and the behavior of
lake outlets also play a key role in the water balance of many
thermokarst lakes (Lesack and Marsh, 2007), which form
major portions of many Arctic and Boreal drainage networks
and impact basin discharge (Woo and Mielko, 2007). Since
permafrost essentially forms a confining layer between a very
thin suprapermafrost water table in the active layer and gen-
erally very deep subpermafrost aquifers, hydrologic fluxes
from groundwater are commonly negligible to non-existent in
continuous permafrost landscapes (Woo and Guan, 2006).
However, in discontinuous permafrost regions, groundwater
flux may be important in the water balance of many lakes
where taliks connect with subpermafrost aquifers (Williams,
1970; Yoshikawa and Hinzman, 2003; Kane and Slaughter, 1973).
The smaller number of water balance components and the
short period of summer activity of most thermokarst lakes,
compared with lower latitude lakes with characteristically
complex groundwater connectivity, would suggest a relatively
simple model of thermokarst lake hydrology. However, the
complex morphology occurring in thermokarst lakes among
Inigok Lake, Northern Alaska
Lake 31, Northern Alaska
Lake 29, Northern Alaska
10 m
500 m
Grayling Lake, Northern Alaska
Lake Glubokoe, Siberia
Tube Dispenser Lake, Siberia
Todd Lake, Canada
Figure 14 Bathymetric profiles of thermokarst lakes located across the circum-Arctic in regions that vary by substrate and ground-ice content.Lake 29 and 31 are oriented elliptical, shallow lakes located in ice-rich, glacio-marine silts in northern Alaska (B.M. Jones unpublished data).Both Grayling Lake (R.A. Beck unpublished data) and Inigok Lake (B.M. Jones unpublished data) have a shallow littoral shelf and deep centralbasins and are located in the Pleistocene Sand Sheet in northern Alaska. Todd Lake (Burn, 2002) , also with a shallow shelf and a deep centralbasin, is located on Richards Island in Canada and occupies an oriented depression that may have formed as a result of fluvio-glacial processes.Lake Glubokoe (Vtyurina, 1960) and Tube Dispenser Lake (G. Grosse unpublished data) are located in very thick and ice-rich permafrost depositsknown as Yedoma or Ice Complex in Siberia.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 337
and within the regions of ice-rich permafrost coupled with
challenges of accurately measuring the contribution of
ground-ice decay and hydrologic fluxes during dynamic and
short seasons of lake recharge and drawdown in lowland
landscapes with very small hydraulic gradients has made
understanding thermokarst lake hydrology an active and ex-
citing area for research (Livingstone et al., 1958; Dingman
et al., 1980; Hobbie, 1980; Woo and Kane, 2008; Pohl et al.,
2009; Turner et al., 2010).
Interactions specific to thermokarst lakes between hydrol-
ogy and lake morphology occur due to thermo-erosional re-
shaping of shorelines, talik development and lake-bottom
subsidence, and water balance contributions from melting
ground ice. Some of these interactions are enhanced during
periods of peak surface storage usually following snowmelt
(Woo and Guan, 2006; Pohl et al., 2009), leading to lake
surface-area expansion and possibly lake coalescence or cata-
strophic drainage (Mackay, 1992; Hinkel et al., 2007; Marsh
et al., 2009) (Figure 17). The impact that hydrologic vari-
ability has on gradual and catastrophic changes in lake
morphology adds additional relevance to understanding
both the seasonal and the long-term hydrologic behavior of
thermokarst lakes (Hinkel et al., 2007; Pohl et al., 2007;
Turner et al., 2010).
Once ice-cover forms on lakes and the active layer of
watersheds begins to refreeze, the water balance of thermo-
karst lakes is typically locked in place during a long winter
period of ice growth. Depending primarily on the temperature
and insulating snow-cover, ice on thermokarst lakes grows up
to 1–2 m thick and gradually reduces liquid water volume
depending on lake depth and bathymetry (Jeffries et al., 2005;
Jones et al., 2009). Spring snowmelt often precedes ice-out on
many lakes, with snowmelt recharge representing the dom-
inant flux, which can commonly exceed maximum storage,
particularly if snow-drifts or ice-jams block lake outlets, or
even bypass lake storage (Woo and Guan, 2006). In the case of
lakes with floating ice on the Alaskan Arctic Coastal Plain, ice
cover can persist up to July and well past snowmelt, whereas
ice-out on lakes with bedfast ice regimes typically occurs in
late May to mid-June (Sellmann et al., 1975; Arp et al., 2011).
Most permafrost regions tend to have arid summers with low
evaporation rates exceeding even lower amounts of rainfall
that cause lake levels to decline during average years
(Dingman et al., 1980; Woo, 1980; Marsh and Bigras, 1988).
Long-term thermokarst lake dynamics in Canada and Alaska
suggest that the interannual variation in precipitation is the
dominant driver of surface area extent (Plug et al., 2008).
Interannual variation in lake evaporation is generally less than
precipitation, although recent trends in the duration of open-
water season due to earlier ice-out suggest potentially in-
creasing summer evaporative losses from lakes (Labrecque
et al., 2009).
Since thermokarst lakes develop and expand through deg-
radation of surface permafrost, much interest exists in how
these lakes are changing with amplified Arctic warming. In a
remote-sensing study, Smith et al. (2005) analyzed lake change
between 1973 and 1997–98 and found that thermokarst lakes
in Siberia increased in surface area extent and number in the
continuous permafrost zone, which was attributed to lake ex-
pansion through shoreline erosion. However, in zones of dis-
continuous and sporadic permafrost lake area and number
decreased, which was attributed to the penetration of taliks and
subsurface drainage. This mechanism of thermokarst lake
drainage has also been documented on the Seward Peninsula in
Alaska, detailing lake-groundwater connectivity and vertical
hydraulic gradients for a discontinuous permafrost environ-
ment (Yoshikawa and Hinzman, 2003). Using remote sensing
throughout Alaska, Riordan et al. (2006) found dramatic trends
in lake shrinkage in zones of discontinuous permafrost
and attributed these changes to increasing evapotranspiration
1500
InflowPrecipitationOutflowEvaporationLake level
1778 mm
128 mm
+126 mm
317 mm
1464 mm
1000
500
0
Wat
er b
alan
ce fa
ctor
s (m
m)
−500
−1000
−1500
31-May 15-Jun 30-Jun 15-Jul 30-Jul 14-Aug 29-Aug 13-Sep
9.5
9.4
9.3
9.2
Lake
leve
l (m
)
9.1
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50
ObservedPredictedPrecipitation 40
30
20
Pre
cipi
tatio
n (m
m d
−1)
10
031-May 15-Jun
TUP Lake level 2006
TUP Lake budget factors
30-Jun 15-Jul
Date
30-Jul 14-Aug 29-Aug 13-Sep
28-Sep
Figure 15 Summer water balance of a thermokarst lake in the Mackenzie Delta region, Canada. Reproduced from Pohl, S., Marsh, P., Onclin,C., Russell, M., 2009. The summer hydrology of a small upland tundra thaw lake: implications to lake drainage. Hydrological Processes 23(17),2536–2546, with permission from Wiley.
338 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
and possibly permafrost degradation, whereas little change was
detected for lakes in continuous permafrost zones. Together,
such broad-scale studies of thermokarst lakes suggest systematic
changes in response to a changing climate. However, com-
parison of lake-area extent with climate records at a higher
frequency during similar time periods suggests interannual
variability driven by precipitation in lowland regions of Canada
and Alaska (Plug et al., 2008; Jones et al., 2009; Labrecque
et al., 2009). A fundamental difficulty specific to analyzing
change in thermokarst lakes is separating hydrologic variability
and geomorphic change. Importantly, the lateral drainage of
thermokarst lakes is considered a function of lake hydrology,
with drainage events linked to high water years (e.g.,
Brewer et al., 1993) (see also Section 8.21.7). Increases in lake
drainage events have been documented on the Tuktoyuktuk
Peninsula, but the relationship with climate patterns, particu-
larly precipitation, is lacking (Marsh et al., 2009). The use of
multiple approaches to detect and separate changes in lake
hydrology from changes in lake morphology, such as coupling
isotope or water solute balance with remote sensing
and hydroclimatic data, has proven useful for thermokarst
(Labrecque et al., 2009) and other Arctic lakes (Smol and
Douglas, 2007).
8.21.6 Oriented Thermokarst Lakes
Oriented thermokarst lakes are lake clusters that exhibit
a common long-axis orientation, and examples of such pat-
terns are common across the circum-Arctic. Some typical
lake shapes have been described as elliptical, egg-shaped, tri-
angular, rectangular, clam-shaped, or D-shaped (Figure 18).
Numerous oriented-lake districts occur in Alaska, Canada, and
Siberia (Table 1, Figure 19). Commonly, oriented lakes are
located in regions with sand-size lithologies, such as deltaic,
fluvial, fluvio-glacial, or aeolian deposits. However, some of
9.3032 Year normal
Yearly peak levels
Peak Lake levels
9.25
9.20
9.15La
ke le
vel (
m)
9.10
9.05
9.001975 1980 1985 1990
Years
1995 2000 2005
Figure 16 Long-term modeled record of peak lake levels. Reproduced from Pohl, S., Marsh, P., Onclin, C., Russell, M., 2009. The summerhydrology of a small upland tundra thaw lake: implications to lake drainage. Hydrological Processes 23(17), 2536 -2546, with permission from Wiley.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 339
the classic examples of elongate, elliptical lakes, such as the
oriented lakes near Barrow, Alaska, have formed in ice-rich
silty deposits. Oriented lakes are also known from regions that
are and have been permafrost free (i.e., southeastern North
America, South America, southeastern Australia, southern
Africa), and thus their presence in the Arctic is not necessarily
related to thermo-erosional shoreline processes alone. How-
ever, the repetitive nature of oriented lake shapes seen around
the Arctic have intrigued researchers for decades and there
likely exists some link between the presence of lakes set in
ice-bearing permafrost terrain with tundra vegetation and a
low-relief landscape.
The manner in which thermokarst lakes become oriented is
still poorly understood and remains controversial, although
the most widely accepted hypothesis is that lakes become
oriented perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction. Field
studies indicate that winds during the ice-free period create
waves within oriented thermokarst lakes that produce circu-
lation cells that concentrate lateral shoreline erosion in zones
oriented at about 50 degrees to the wave approach, while
stabilizing other shores through deposition of sediments and
formation of littoral shelves (Livingstone, 1954; Rex, 1959;
Carson and Hussey, 1962; Mackay, 1963) (Figure 20).
This two-cell current circulation results in enhanced thermo-
erosion at the ends of the lakes and causes the long axis
of the lake to become normal to the prevailing summer wind
direction. French and Harry (1983) proposed that instead of
the normal wind regime for a given region, it is the storm
wind regime that is responsible for lake orientation. Even
though the wind model may potentially explain the formation
of oriented lakes in some regions (e.g., Carson and Hussey,
1962; Cote and Burn, 2002), it remains challenging to
apply in other regions. For example, Kuznetsova (1961) noted
that predominant wind directions in the Yana-Indigirka
Lowland of North Siberia both in winter and in summer
are parallel to the long axis of NNE-oriented, elliptical
lakes, instead of perpendicular as proposed by the North
American wind model. Furthermore, some of the other
existing morphologies of oriented lakes, such as rectangular
shapes, are rather difficult to explain by wind-driven processes
alone.
Some studies indicate that although wind is likely an im-
portant aspect of lake orientation, a mix of other endoge-
nous and exogenous factors likely plays a role, including: (1)
redistribution of sediment on the littoral shelves parallel
to the prevailing wind, which enhances insulation of the
underlying permafrost; (2) preferential thawing due to the
orientation of the underlying and surrounding ice-wedge
network; and (3) preferential thawing and erosion due to in-
homogeneous lithological and ground ice preconditions
caused by buried geological structures such as dune forms or
fluvial channels (Carson and Hussey, 1962; Grigoriev, 1993).
Some other studies point to deep antecedent conditions, such
as the underlying bedrock geology, as the driving mechanism
(Allenby, 1989); however, in many oriented lake regions, this
interface may lie several kilometers below the surface. Some
other hypotheses present in the older literature, such as the
proposed glacial scraping by a pan-Arctic ice sheet advancing
from the shelf onto the Northeast Siberian coastal lowlands
(Grosswald et al., 1999), can be rebutted with overwhelming
field evidence. More recently, Pelletier (2005) proposed that
topographical aspect and thaw slumping of the downslope
end of a lake are the dominant forces controlling elongation
of thermokarst lakes on the Alaska Coastal Plain. However,
this hypothesis for this region was rejected because of several
weak points in the model assumptions as well as lack of
field evidence, including the fact that lake orientation
and topographic aspect do not match up in this region
(Hinkel, 2006).
An important factor to be considered for lake orientation is
that thermokarst lakes are variable features over time (see
Sections 8.21.4 and 8.21.5). Commonly, lakes are tightly
Figure 17 Aerial image time series showing an example ofthermokarst lake expansion and coalescence (lake in center right)and drainage (lake in lower left) from the North Slope of Alaska.(a) 1955, (b) 1979, (c) 2002.
340 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
connected to older drained basins for several generations,
suggesting that environmental conditions during initiation
of the first lake generation in the early to middle Holocene
may have been an important factor preconditioning lake
orientation today. Accordingly, the potential causes of their
orientation also have to be understood with consideration of
paleo-environmental aspects, including past wind directions,
past air and water temperatures, past water-level regimes, and
changes in the hydrodynamic regime due to changes in lake
morphology (size and depth) over the lifetime of these lakes
ranging from hundreds to several thousand years.
Thus, although for some regions the wind hypothesis may
explain the processes leading to the orientation of thermokarst
lakes, it is not universally applicable and remains problematic
for some oriented lake morphology types and regions even
after 60 years of field studies. We only hope that future field
studies will help to further explain these fascinating, complex
features so prominent in the Arctic.
8.21.7 Drainage of Thermokarst Lakes
Satellite images of regions rich in thermokarst lakes show
numerous drained and vegetated lake basins, generally ex-
ceeding the number and area of extant lakes (e.g., Figure 2b
and e). The presence of large numbers of thermokarst basins
that contain no or only small remnant lakes in many regions
indicates that thermokarst lakes commonly lost surface area
due to drainage or drying in the past. The possible life span
of a thermokarst lake from initiation to drainage or drying is
poorly understood, and yet is believed to depend on the
regional landscape and the climate characteristics, that is,
whether long-term water balance and the precipitation–
evaporation ratio are favorable for lake preservation or
whether lakes are prone to rapid drainage due to relief gra-
dients and expansion rates. Although climate dynamics are
important factors for thermokarst lake water balance and
lake area loss by drying in highly continental regions, such as
Interior Alaska (Riordan et al., 2006) or central Yakutia
(Bosikov, 1998), a more important factor for thermokarst
lake dynamics in many regions is that they tend to expand in
depth and laterally and eventually encounter a drainage
mechanism. The likelihood of lake drainage is increased by
high lake water levels, which are connected to long-term
climatic trends or unusual precipitation events (Mackay,
1988). High water levels enhance thermoerosion and may
cause thermokarst lakes to overflow their banks and drain.
Various mechanisms could result in increased water levels
and possible lateral drainage, such as a long-term positive
precipitation–evaporation balance, storms that result in
higher waves and strong wave erosion followed by seepage,
and high snow accumulation that creates snow dams in
outlets, causing rising water levels during spring melt. Other
causes of thermokarst lake drainage are not necessarily re-
lated to the lake water balance, but rather to external factors
such as melting of the ice-wedge network in the surrounding
surface creating a drainage pathway, headward gully erosion
toward a lake, tapping by a river, stream or other lake, or
coastal erosion (Hopkins, 1949; Lewellen, 1972; Walker,
1978, 2008; Mackay, 1988; Marsh and Neumann, 2001;
Hinkel et al., 2007; Arp et al., 2010) (Figure 21).
In many instances, the drainage of thermokarst lakes can
be described as catastrophic, because rapid deepening and
widening of the drainage channel in ice-rich permafrost can
take place within hours, given a sufficient drainage gradient
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 18 High-resolution panchromatic World View satellite image subsets (r DigitalGlobe) of various oriented lake and basin types in theArctic. (a) Oriented, elliptical thermokarst lakes and drained basins on the Arctic Coastal Plain, northern Alaska, USA; (b) Oriented, triangularthermokarst lakes and drained basins on the Khalertchinskaya Tundra, Kolyma river lowland, NE Siberia; (c) Oriented, clam-shaped thermokarstlakes and drained basins on the Great Plain of Koukdjuak, western Baffin Island, Canada; (d) Oriented, rectangular thermokarst lakes and drainedbasins on the Old Crow Flats, northern Yukon, Canada.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 341
and warm lake water temperature, resulting in complete
drainage of large lakes within hours to a few days (Mackay,
1981; Mackay, 1988; Marsh and Neumann, 2001). Figure 22
shows a small thermokarst lake on the Seward Peninsula
that drained between 1978 and 2003. The deep drainage
channel from the basin toward a small stream may indicate
catastrophic drainage during a single event. High-resolution
elevation models of drained lake basins and their drainage
channels show very clearly that channels also erode into the
lake basin floor (Figure 23). Marsh and Neumann (2001)
noted that the peak discharge generated by a catastrophic
drainage event for a small lake in the Mackenzie Delta region
was on the same order of magnitude as peak snowmelt dis-
charge. However, based on the initial lake volume and cap-
acity of a thermo-mechanically eroding outlet, peak discharge
could even be an order of magnitude higher than the max-
imum snowmelt peakflow (Marsh et al., 2008).
Hopkins (1949) first described the formation, growth, and
eventual drainage of thermokarst lakes in the Imuruk Lake
area, Seward Peninsula, where lakes showed signs of partial
and complete drainage. The drainage events were linked to the
degradation of an ice-wedge network that extended from the
lake shore into a lower lying adjacent area, eventually forming
a drainage outlet. Catastrophic lake drainage via ice-wedge
degradation has also been described for many thermokarst
lakes on the Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula, Canada (Mackay, 1988).
In this study, lake levels were examined over a 36-year period,
from 1950 to 1986. Over this time period, roughly 65 lakes
had undergone at least partial drainage across the Tuktoyaktuk
Peninsula and at least 20 had drained completely. Mackay also
discussed the mechanisms of lake drainage. He noted that ice-
wedge degradation along lake margins can lead to catastrophic
lake drainage. Other drainage mechanisms identified were
headward erosion, bank overflow and subsequent degradation
of permafrost caused by snow damming of drainage outlets,
and erosion along seepage outlets (Figure 24). Mackay also
found evidence suggesting that human activity had caused the
drainage of one lake in 1972. These results suggest that, on
Table 1 Oriented thermokarst lake districts in the Arctic and Subarctic
Region Dominant lake (and basin) shape Dominantorientation
Referencesa Site in Figure 19
AlaskaGeneral Alaska Arctic coastal
plainElongated elliptical NNW Black and Barksdale, 1949;
Livingstone, 1954; Rosenfeldand Hussey, 1958; Rex, 1959;Carson and Hussey, 1962;Sellmann et al., 1975; Carson,2001; Hinkel et al., 2005
A1
Deadhorse Rounded rectangular NNW This study A2Point Lay region Triangular to egg-shaped NNW This study A3Eastern Alaska Arctic coastal
plainRounded rectangular ENE This study A4
Middle Kuparuk river region Rounded rectangular ENE This study A5Lower Kuparuk river region D-shaped ENE This study A6Kuskokwim Delta Elliptical ENE This study A7Egegik Egg-shaped to triangular NNE This study A8
CanadaOld Crow Plain Rectangular NW Bostock, 1948 C1Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula Elliptical to triangular NNE Mackay, 1963; Cote and
Burn, 2002C2
Liverpool Bay area, CapeBathurst
Elliptical N Mackay, 1956; Mackay, 1992 C3
Banks Island D-shaped and elliptical NE Harry and French, 1983; Frenchand Harry, 1983
C4
Baffin Island Clam-shaped NNE Bird, 1967 C5
RussiaVankarem Lowland Triangular NE This study R1Koyvelkh-vergin River Rectangular NE Stremyakov, 1963 R2Cape Billings Elliptical NNE This study R3Chaunskaya Lowland Rectangular NW Stremyakov, 1963 R4Karchyk Peninsula Rectangular NNE to NE This study R5Ayon Island Egg-shaped NNE to NE This study R6Penzhina River Rectangular NE to ENE This study R7Kolyma Lowland
(Khalertchinskaya Tundra)Triangular NNE This study R8
Bolshoy Morskoe Lake region D-shaped to egg-shaped NNW This study R9Zyryanka region (Middle Kolyma
river region)Triangular to D-shaped NNW This study R10
Yana-Indigirka Lowland Elongated elliptical and roundedrectangular
NNE Kuznetsova, 1961 R11
Buor Khaya Peninsula Elliptical N This study R12Arga Muora Sise Island (Lena
River Delta)Elongated elliptical NNE Grigoriev, 1993; Morgenstern
et al., 2008R13
Anabar-Olenek Lowland Elliptical N Grosse et al., 2006 R14North Siberian Lowland Elliptical NNW This study R15
aIn addition to references, all regions were studied in Google Earth to identify shapes and orientation; where no reference is provided, only this tool was used.
342 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
average, two lakes drain each year on the Tuktoyaktuk Pen-
insula. Studying a longer time period for the Mackenzie Delta
region, Marsh et al. (2009) identified a weak trend of de-
creasing numbers of thermokarst lake drainage events, from
1.13 lakes yr�1 from 1950 to 1973, to 0.93 lakes yr�1 from
1973 to 1985, and to 0.33 lakes yr�1 from 1985 to 2000.
However, the reasons for this trend are not clear and would
require more research.
Thermokarst lake drainage also occurs as a result of coastal
erosion and several authors noted that this drainage mech-
anism also tends to be catastrophic (MacCarthy, 1953; Hop-
kins and Kidd, 1988; McGraw, 2008; Arp et al., 2010).
However, they suggest drainage via ice-wedge degradation as
the most frequent cause of thaw lake drainage. For other areas,
such as the Canadian Beaufort Sea and the Laptev Sea in
northern Siberia, the importance of thermokarst lakes, their
drainage, and subsequent formation of thermokarst lagoons
has been pointed out for the evolution of Arctic coastlines and
land–ocean interactions (Ruz et al., 1992; Romanovskii et al.,
2000).
For the zone of discontinuous permafrost, Hopkins (1949)
and Yoshikawa and Hinzman (2003) have noted internal
drainage and lowering of the water level of thermokarst lakes
and ponds through open taliks penetrating the thin
Elliptical
30° E 30° W0°
150° E 150° W180°
D-shapedEgg-shaped
Clam-shaped
TriangularRectangular
Figure 19 Pan-Arctic map showing the major oriented thermokarst lake districts, and predominant lake shape and orientation in each region.For site descriptions, see Table 1.
30
10 52 cm s−1
15 cm s−12025
3015
N N
200 m500 m
1100 cm s−1Wind900 cm s−1Wind
2 cm s−120 cm s−1
5
1030
20
45 30
Figure 20 Wind circulation model for oriented thermokarst lakes on the Alaska Arctic Coastal Plain (Figure 4.46 from Davis, 2001; adapted fromFigures 3, 9, and 10 in Carson and Hussey, 1962). Reproduced with permission from University of Alaska Press.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 343
Unknown (9)
0 35 70 140 km
Barrow
Lake expansion Coastal erosion (1)
Headward erosion (13)Stream meandering (8)
Figure 21 Causes of lake drainage on the Alaska North Slope coastal plain for the 25-year observation period from c. 1975 to c. 2000according to Hinkel, K.M., Jones, B.M., Eisner, W.R., Cuomo, C.J., Beck, R.A., Frohn, R., 2007. Methods to assess natural and anthropogenicthaw lake drainage on the western Arctic coastal plain of northern Alaska. Journal of Geophysical Research 112, F02S16, with permission fromAmerican Geophysical Union.
200 m 200 m
(a) (b)
Figure 22 Drainage of a small thermokarst lake in the continuous permafrost zone of the northern portion of the Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Thepresence of the deep drainage channel toward a small stream indicates catastrophic drainage with high peak discharge. Aerial imagery is from(a) 1978 and (b) 2003.
344 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
permafrost layer (Figure 25). In some studies, the impact of
human activities, such as from mining, over-land tundra
traffic, or construction work, has been highlighted as a cause
for intentional or unintentional thermokarst lake drainage.
Mackay (1992) described an example of a lake on Tuktoyak-
tuk Peninsula that drained rapidly in 1971 or 1972 after a
winter road was built across the outlet, which resulted in
strong surface disturbance and channel deepening. Other
human-caused lake drainage examples include events near
Barrow, Alaska, where shallow artificial ditches resulted in
rapid drainage (Billings and Peterson, 1980). Hinkel et al.
(2007) showed that at least 7 partial or total drainage events
out of 19 observed on the Barrow Peninsula from 1949 to
2002 can be attributed to human activity (Figure 21). The
causes include both inadvertent drainage by vehicle-caused
disturbance of tundra surfaces near a lake and the subsequent
0 100 200 m
Elevation
40
m asl
0
Figure 23 LIDAR-based digital elevation model of a relatively younger drained lake basin within an older drained basin. Note the deeply inciseddrainage channel toward the coast in the north, the well-developed ice-wedge polygons on the surrounding older basin surface, and the veryweakly developed polygons in the younger drained basin.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 345
formation of a drainage pathway, and intentional drainage by
digging ditches.
8.21.8 Drained Thermokarst Lake Basins andThermokarst Lake Cycle
Drained thermokarst basins are ubiquitous in Arctic coastal
lowlands. For example, Grosse et al. (2005) showed that
thermokarst basins cover about 46% of the total land area
of the Bykovsky Peninsula, Siberia, whereas the current
thermokarst lake area is less than half the area occupied by
thermokarst basins in the same region (Figure 26). In many
regions, coalesced and overlapping thermokarst basin gener-
ations are present (e.g., Carson and Hussey, 1962; Sellmann
et al., 1975; Hinkel et al., 2005; Kaplina, 2009), indicating
the frequent reoccupation of these terrain depressions
with new lakes or due to the renewed growth of remnant
lakes. In central and northeast Siberia’s ice-rich permafrost
regions, thermokarst lakes and drained basins are part
of a so-called Alas landscape development, which forms
gradually with numerous intermediate steps and can result
in very large, deep, and interconnected basins (Figure 7)
(Soloviev, 1962; Czudek and Demek, 1970; Bosikov; 1991;
Morgenstern et al., 2011).
The potential cyclic nature of thermokarst lakes on the
landscape has been widely discussed with a focus on Alaska
since the 1950s (Cabot, 1947; Hopkins, 1949; Britton, 1957;
Black, 1969; Billings and Peterson, 1980). This thermokarst
lake cycle, or the ‘thaw lake cycle’ in the older literature, was
thought to consist of at least two or more cycles of the fol-
lowing sequence: (1) lake formation in ice-rich permafrost,
preferentially starting with ice-wedge degradation; (2) lake
growth and eventually drainage; (3) aggradation of new
permafrost in the drained basin and reformation of ground
ice, that is, ice wedges; (4) inflation of the basin surface to near
the original surface due to increasing ice volumes; and (5)
degradation of the younger generation of ice wedges and
renewed thermokarst lake formation, from where on the cycle
repeats itself. A key assumption of this hypothesis is the ‘in-
flation’ of the refreezing lake and talik sediments to approxi-
mately pre-lake elevation levels due to ground ice formation
and ice-wedge growth in a relatively short cycles of a few
thousand years. This assumption has, however, been fre-
quently questioned because of the lack of field evidence for
sufficiently rapid ice-wedge growth, very strong long-term frost
heave of drained basin floors, the presence of multiple cycles
of lake drainage and formation, and the questionable ap-
plicability to other thermokarst lake regions outside North
Alaska (Jorgenson and Shur, 2007; French, 2007). The defin-
ition by Jorgenson and Shur (2007), however, is very strict in
that once drained, the land surface must return to the original
topographic condition for it to constitute a cycle, even if
multiple lake generations form and drain in the same location
High Lake level
High Lake level
High Lake level
High Lake level
(d)
(c)
(b)
(a)
Lake
Ice wedge polygons
Ice wedge
Ice wedge
Permafrost
Permafrost
Permafrost
Permafrost
TunnelFlow
Flow through ice wedge troughs
Willows
Seepage
Creek levelSnow dam
Figure 24 Various mechanisms resulting in lateral thermokarst lake drainage according to Mackay (1988). (a) Tunneling of ice wedges resultsin formation of a drainage channel along the ice wedge network; (b) Flow through ice–wedge troughs; (c) A snow dam contains meltwater in thelake basin in spring, and can cause erosion of a deep drainage channel when the dam is eventually breached; and (d) A high lake level results ingradual seepage of the lake, which may cause of a deeper channel. Note that all drainage modes are related to a high seasonal lake level that canresult in overtopping of banks, subsequent erosion of a drainage channel, and partial or complete lake drainage. Reproduced with permissionfrom Natural Resources Canada 2010, courtesy of the Geological Survey of Canada (Paper 88-01D; Mackay, J.R.).
346 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
at some reduced land surface elevation. Nevertheless, the
massive overlap of lake basins observed in some regions
(Figure 27) indicates recurring thermokarst lake formation
and drainage on the landscape.
The start of massive thermokarst lake and basin formation
has been pinpointed to the Late Pleistocene–Holocene transi-
tion and the following Holocence Thermal Maximum in most
regions of the Arctic (Rampton, 1988; Romanovskii et al., 2000;
Walter et al., 2007a; Shilo et al., 2007; Kaplina, 2009). Analysis
of exposed sediment sequences and radiocarbon dates on
samples from lake cores and drained lake basin cores on the
northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska, indicate that thermokarst
lakes there typically persist 2.5 to 3 kya BP (Hopkins and Kidd,
1988); however, several lakes on the low-relief terrain in
northern Alaska appear to have been in existence for at least
4 to 5 kya BP (Carson, 1968). In other regions, lakes appear to
be much more stable and long-lived. Basal sediments of
Nikolay Lake on Arga Muore Sise Island, Lena Delta, dated to
the early to middle Holocene (Schwamborn et al., 2002a),
whereas lakes on Richards Island, Mackenzie Delta, were found
to date to the early Holocene (Dallimore et al., 2000). This
demonstrates that some thermokarst lakes may persist for only
several thousand years, while others have survived over the
course of the Holocene. Thus, the number of lake generations
found within a particular region is largely driven by the lon-
gevity of lakes on the landscape.
Hinkel et al. (2003) assessed the age of numerous drained
basins (or the timing of the drainage event) by radiocarbon
dating the terrestrial peat above lacustrine sediments. They
found a weak correlation of these dates with a relative
P20
B1 B2Palsa
PermafrostGroundwaterdrainage0.1−100 cm/day
−10 m
0
400 m
P18
N
Figure 25 Schematic block diagram of internal thermokarst lake drainage through an open talik in the discontinuous permafrost zone in thesouthern portion of the Seward Peninsula, Alaska. Larger pools (P18, P20) have open taliks. White columns: ground water monitoring wells; Blackcolumns: temperature monitoring boreholes. Reproduced from Yoshikawa, K., Hinzman, L.D., 2003. Shrinking thermokarst ponds and groundwaterdynamics in discontinuous permafrost near Council, Alaska. Permafrost & Periglacial Processes 14, 151–160, with permission from Wiley.
m asl Slope in degree
(a) (b) (c)
Thermokarst depressionThermo-erosional valleyThermo-erosional cirquePingo
0 2.5 5 10 15Kilometers
50
0
N
High: 44,5
Low: 0,0
N
Figure 26 Deep thermokarst basins with remnant lakes on the Bykovsky Peninsula, NE Siberia. (a) Digital elevation model withlakes and streams; Thermokarst lake basins are more than 20 m deep, contain shallow remnant lakes, and are surrounded by Yedomauplands of very ice-rich permafrost; (b) Slope map showing steep slopes surrounding drained lake basins; (c) Geomorphological mapshowing drained thermokarst basins, pingos in some of the drained basins, thermo-erosional valleys, and thermo-erosional cirques along thecoast.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 347
Figure 27 Landsat-5 TM satellite image subsets showing multipledrained thermokarst lake basin generations and current lakes in threedifferent Arctic regions: (a) Barrow Peninsula, Alaska Arctic CoastalPlain; (b) Cape Espenberg Lowland, northern portion of the SewardPeninsula, Alaska; (c) Cape Chukochy region, North Siberia. Note themultiple overlapping basins in all three regions. All images are RGBfalse color composites using bands 5-4-3 at the same map scale.Landsat image. Reproduced from USGS EROS Data Center/NASA.
348 Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins
age classification model based on morphological, surface,
and subsurface properties of the dated basins, such as devel-
opmental stage of ice-wedge networks, ground ice content,
and surface spectral properties (Figure 28). Basins from this
study on the Barrow Peninsula, Alaska, dated between 0 and
5.5 kya BP.
Postdrainage processes in thermokarst basins include
permafrost aggradation, frost cracking of soils, ice wedge and
segregated ground ice formation, and basin floor inflation
(Mackay 1981, 1997, 1999; Ling and Zhang, 2004; Jorgenson
and Shur, 2007), slope relaxation (Plug and West, 2009; Ulrich
et al., 2010), and peat accumulation (Hinkel et al., 2003;
Bockheim et al., 2004).
8.21.9 Outlook
A recent remote-sensing study has shown that globally, lakes
are warming rapidly with ongoing climate change (Schneider
and Hook, 2010). In permafrost regions, such warming would
not only impact thermokarst lakes as habitats, but would also
have profound consequences for their hydrological and mor-
phological dynamics as well as their life cycle. The thermal
regimes of thermokarst lakes and the surrounding frozen and
ice-rich ground are closely linked. Changes to thermokarst
lakes, including warmer water temperatures, earlier ice-out,
longer ice free seasons, changes in recharge patterns, and en-
hanced degradation of the surrounding permafrost, will likely
have fundamental impacts on these systems, with con-
sequences for lake properties and distribution, landscape and
ecosystem character, land cover, greenhouse gas emissions,
and fresh water, fish, and wildlife resources. For example, Arp
et al. (2011) found that deeper thermokarst lakes with floating
ice regimes had very different ice-out timing and water balance
than shallower lakes with bedfast ice and the proportion of
these two lake regimes across the landscape should be sensi-
tive to climate change, with strong landscape-scale feedbacks
to surface energy balance, permafrost, carbon mobilization,
water supply, and aquatic habitat.
In a different study, Walter et al. (2007b) investigated the
potential impact of a future change in thermokarst lake dis-
tribution on methane emissions from this important northern
source by applying a space-for-time substitution across gradi-
ents of permafrost extent and Arctic lake distribution. They
anticipate a strong increase in methane emissions over the
near term as thermokarst lakes in the continuous permafrost
zone grow and new ones initiate in a warming Arctic. How-
ever, over the long term, as the degradation of permafrost
progresses and lake cover in the Arctic likely declines, methane
emissions from this source would decline to lower than cur-
rent levels. In a first step toward a better understanding of the
impact of thermokarst lake drainage on the carbon cycle in
the Indigirka lowlands (Siberia), van Huissteden et al. (2011)
assessed landscape-scale carbon dynamics in a simple two-
dimensional model of lake drainage. As a result, they pre-
dicted lower near-future methane emissions from these
landscapes than previously assumed due to lake loss. How-
ever, many of the physical complexities of thermokarst lake
dynamics discussed above are not yet included in this two-
dimensional model, leaving the door wide open for further
discussions and enhancements.
More research needs to be carried out to fully understand
whether thermokarst lake formation or drainage will dominate
various types of permafrost landscapes over the coming decades
00
(e)
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
1000
2000
3000
14C
age
(ye
ars) 4000
5000A
A
A
AA
AA
AA
MY YO O
O
O
O
O
O
O
6000
10 20 30Organic layer thickness (cm)
40 50 60 70
Y = Young: 0−50 YearsM = Medium; 50−300O = Old; 300−2000A = Ancient; 2000−5500
Y= 65.11(X) − 80.04N = 21R-squared = 0.41Sigma-hat-sq'd = 2.3739 E+06
Figure 28 Drained Thermokarst Lake Basins (DTLB) of different ages (or time since drainage) on the Alaska North Slope (from Hinkel et al.,2003). The basins differ morphologically due to post-drainage permafrost aggradation and the development of vegetation and periglacialfeatures such as ice wedge polygons or pingos. Age classification is based on radiocarbon dates of basal terrestrial peat over lacustrinesediments: (a) DTLB of young age (0–50 years); (b) DTLB of medium age (50–300 years); (c) DTLB of old age (300–2000 years); (d) DTLBof ancient age (2000–5500 years); (e) Plot with surface organic layer thickness as a function of radiocarbon age of basal peat in DTLB showsa weakly correlated linear trend of peat thickness to time since basin drainage. Reproduced from Hinkel, K.M., Eisner, W.R., Bockheim, J.G.,Frederick, E.N., Peterson, K.M., Dai, X., 2003. Spatial extent, age, and carbon stocks in drained thaw lake basins on the Barrow Peninsula,Alaska. Arctic, Antarctic and Alpine Research 35, 291–300, with permission from Regents of the University of Colorado.
Thermokarst Lakes, Drainage, and Drained Basins 349
and which geographic regions and soil carbon pools will be
affected by these changes. In light of these possible feedbacks,
pan-Arctic monitoring of thermokarst lake systems in perma-
frost regions is needed to assess the trajectory and magnitude of
changes and understand their consequences for the Arctic and
the global system.
Acknowledgments
GG and BMJ were supported by NASA Carbon Cycle Sciences
grant NNX08AJ37G, NSF ARCSS grant no. 0732735, and a
grant of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Further support was
provided by the US Geological Survey – Alaska Science Center
as well as the Geographic Analysis and Monitoring and Land
Remote Sensing programs. We thank Dr. J Brown, Dr. KM
Hinkel, and the volume editor for their comments on the
manuscript. We thank Dr. C Siegert for translation of some of
the pertinent Russian literature.
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Biographical Sketch
Guido Grosse received a university Diploma (MSc) in Geology from the Technical University and Mining
Academy Freiberg, Germany, and a Doctor rerum naturalium (PhD) in Geology from the University of Potsdam in
collaboration with the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Germany, in 2001 and 2005,
respectively. He received an International Polar Year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
from 2006–09, and is currently a Research Assistant Professor at the Geophysical Institute of this Arctic university.
His research focuses on climate change impacts in high-latitude terrestrial environments. In his current research
projects, he uses remote sensing, GIS, and extensive field work in the Arctic to study the changes in permafrost
regions and their impacts on geomorphology, hydrology, ecosystems, and the carbon cycle. He has authored or
co-authored 32 peer-reviewed journal articles.
Benjamin M. Jones received a BS degree in Environmental Studies and an MA degree in Geography from the
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2003 and 2006, respectively. He is currently working toward a PhD
degree in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Since 2007, he has
been a geographer with the Alaska Science Center, U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, Alaska. To date, he has
authored or co-authored 20 refereed manuscripts. His research focuses on northern high-latitude regions and
involves the use of field-based studies, remote sensing, and GIS to better understand past and present landscape
dynamics and change.
Christopher D. Arp earned a BSc degree in Fisheries and Wildlife Biology and Environmental Studies from Iowa
State University in 1994, an MS. in Watershed Science from Colorado State University in 1998, and a PhD in
Ecology from Utah State University in 2006. Since moving to Alaska, he has been conducting research on aquatic
ecosystems throughout the state, first with the U.S. Geological Survey and most recently with the University of
Alaska Fairbanks. His research interests are broad, with over 20 publications to date on ecosystems topics in
Alpine and Arctic environments, and his current focus is on landscape functions of lakes and streams, permafrost
watershed hydrology, and ice processes of aquatic ecosystems. Chris enjoys adventures such as traveling, fishing,
hunting, rafting, skiing, and camping with his wife Sarah, daughter Hannah, and dog Tank.