Satellite-derived changes in the permafrost landscape of central Yakutia, 2000–2011: Wetting, drying, and fires

Abstract

The focus of this research has been on detecting changes in lake areas, vegetation, land surface temperatures, and the area covered by snow, using data from remote sensing in Central Siberia. Remote sensing products were used to analyze changes in water bodies, land surface temperature (LST), and leaf area index (LAI), as well as the occurrence and extent of forest fires, and the area and duration of snow cover. The remote sensing analyses (for LST, snow cover, LAI, and fire) were based on MODIS-derived NASA products (250-1000 m) for 2000 to 2011. Changes in water bodies were calculated from two mosaics of (USGS) Landsat (30 m) satellite images from 2002 and 2009. This area experienced both large scale wetting and large scale drying during the study period probably related to the nature of the substrate conditions. The land surface temperatures showed a consistent warming trend, with an average increase of about 0.12 °C/year, but ranged up to 0.49 °C/year during September-October. This is about ten times higher than the global warming rate of 0.0116 °C/year (2000 to 2014) estimated by Karl et al. (2015). The spring warming trend is very likely to be due to changes in the area covered by snow: 80% of the area showed reduction in snow coverage in spring. The warming trend observed in fall does not, however, appear to be directly related to any changes in the area of snow cover, or to the atmospheric conditions, or to the proportion of the land surface that is covered by water (i.e., to wetting and drying). The study area (315,000 km 2 ) covers the main (central) part of the Lena River catchment in the Yakutia region of Siberia (Russia), extending from east of Yakutsk to the central Siberian Plateau, and from the southern Lena River to north of the Vilyui River. Approximately 90% of the area is underlain by continuous permafrost. The area has a high population density compared to other permafrost regions and can therefore be important for the study of rapid land surface changes and the resulting socio-economic effects. Landscape characteristics (Fedorov et al., 1989) land surface temperature

Size Distribution, Surface Coverage, Water, Carbon, and Metal Storage of Thermokarst Lakes in the Permafrost Zone of the Western Siberia Lowland

“…The extrapolation of results from well-studied lakes of the Mackenzie Delta region of Canada [9,[91][92][93][94], the Yakutia alasses and yedoma lakes [20,95,96], to much larger territories of boreal plains such as the WSL peatlands, and North-Siberia and Yana-Indigirka lowlands, remains unwarranted. The lakes of these lowlands may stand apart from other studied lakes of the subarctic, in view of their high peat context, low pH, shallow depth, and very low salt content.…”

“…In this regard, the boreal and tundra plains are extremely important for a lake inventory study because of the high coverage of the watershed area by these lakes (up to 70% in some western Siberian river watersheds [14,15]), and fast temporal dynamics of thermokarst lake landscapes, reflecting on-going climate change in their watersheds [16][17][18][19][20]. The latter brings about a shorter residence time of lakes, whose size changes, especially at southern latitudes, due to the disappearance of sporadic and isolated permafrost.…”

Landsat-Based Trend Analysis of Lake Dynamics across Northern Permafrost Regions

“…Some studies find an increase in the number of lakes independent of the regional lake area changes, which may be caused by new thermokarst lake initiation and splitting of larger lakes into multiple remnant lakes [14,26]. Lake area increase has been observed over several regions in North America [16,27,32], and Siberia [26,33,34]. In contrast, lake area loss was found in Western Alaska [14] in Northwestern Canada [12,35], and in the northeastern part of European Russia [36], and Siberia [34,37].…”

“…Lake area increase has been observed over several regions in North America [16,27,32], and Siberia [26,33,34]. In contrast, lake area loss was found in Western Alaska [14] in Northwestern Canada [12,35], and in the northeastern part of European Russia [36], and Siberia [34,37]. In the discontinuous permafrost zones (<90% permafrost cover), a decrease of lake area has been observed for most regions [26,28,29].…”

PeRL: a circum-Arctic Permafrost Region Pond and Lake database

“…The rapid warming of the Arctic affects the distribution of surface and subsurface water due to permafrost degradation and increased evapotranspiration (Hinzman et al, 2013). Remotesensing studies have found both increasing and decreasing trends in surface water extent for waterbodies in permafrost regions across broad spatial and temporal scales (e.g., Carroll et al, 2011;Watts et al, 2012;Boike et al, 2016;Kravtsova and Rodionova, 2016). These studies, however, are limited in their assessment of changes in surface inundation since they only include lakes, i.e., waterbodies with a surface area of 1.0×10 4 m 2 or larger.…”