treatise on geomorphology || 8.21 thermokarst lakes, drainage, and drained basins

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 349
Gr

dra

(E

Gl

Tre

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.).


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).


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).


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.


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.


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).


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.


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.


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.


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.


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

9.0

8.9

8.8

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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.


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.).


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.


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.


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.


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.

treatise on geomorphology || 8.21 thermokarst lakes, drainage, and drained basins

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