Intensified global warming has transformed Canadian High Arctic river networks over 60 years, influenced by freeze-thaw cycles and flooding patterns. New research underscores the urgent need for predictive models to forecast future Arctic environmental shifts. New research co-led by Simon Fraser
shows that amplified global warming in the Canadian High Arctic drove a profound shift in the structure of a river network carved into a permafrost landscape in only 60 years. Documenting a powerful interplay among climate change, the freeze-thaw dynamics of polygonal ground, and the delivery of surface water by floods as well as snow and ice melting, the team developed a new view of the physical controls governing the speed and pattern of river channel development in these fragile landscapes.
Antero Kukko collecting topographic data using the AkhkaR4DW backpack mobile laser scanning system which Dr. Kukko designed and built. Credit: Shawn ChartrandChartrand is part of an international research team that arrived at the uninhabited island of Axel Heiberg at the start of one of the most intense summer warming events ever recorded. Their field research focused on the island’s Muskox Valley, east of the Muller Ice Cap.
Using the LiDAR data, the team produced a Digital Elevation Model of a 400-meter section of the valley. “Through modeling of how water moves through the landscape, we found that flood waters routed through interconnected polygon troughs enhances the likelihood of erosion and channel development,” says Chartrand.
The Axel Heiberg 2019 team headed into the field for a long day of data collection and hiking. Credit: Mark JellinekFlooding from the valley lake, and seasonal melt of the snowpack and ground ice contributes water which coalesces down valley, setting the conditions for coarse sediment transport and the development of channel networks along the valley floor. However, the timing of flooding during peak thaw can influence how much erosion occurs.
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