Thermal Erosion of a Permafrost Coastline: Improving Process-Based Models Using Time-Lapse Photography

Wobus, Cameron; Anderson, Robert S.; Overeem, I.; Matell, Nora; Clow, Gary D.; Urban, F. E.

doi:10.1657/1938-4246-43.3.474

Cited by 54 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Our result of currently 1.9 times more rapid erosion is also consistent with recently observed 1.6 times more rapid coastal erosion rates in the Laptev Sea region by Günther et al (2013a). Wobus et al (2011) used time-lapse photography to study thermo-erosion along Alaska's Beaufort Sea coast. They report thaw rates of 1-6 cm d −1 during spring, prior to sea ice break-up.…”

Section: Interannual and Seasonal Variability Of Erosionsupporting

confidence: 90%

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Observing Muostakh disappear: permafrost thaw subsidence and erosion of a ground-ice-rich island in response to arctic summer warming and sea ice reduction

Günther

Overduin

Yakshina³

et al. 2015

The Cryosphere

169

172

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Abstract.Observations of coastline retreat using contemporary very high resolution satellite and historical aerial imagery were compared to measurements of open water fraction, summer air temperature, and wind. We analysed seasonal and interannual variations of thawing-induced cliff top retreat (thermo-denudation) and marine abrasion (thermoabrasion) on Muostakh Island in the southern central Laptev Sea. Geomorphometric analysis revealed that total ground ice content on Muostakh is made up of equal amounts of intrasedimentary and macro ground ice and sums up to 87 %, rendering the island particularly susceptible to erosion along the coast, resulting in land loss. Based on topographic reference measurements during field campaigns, we generated digital elevation models using stereophotogrammetry, in order to block-adjust and orthorectify aerial photographs from 1951 and GeoEye, QuickBird, WorldView-1, and WorldView-2 imagery from 2010 to 2013 for change detection. Using sea ice concentration data from the Special Sensor Microwave Imager (SSM/I) and air temperature time series from nearby Tiksi, we calculated the seasonal duration available for thermo-abrasion, expressed as open water days, and for thermo-denudation, based on the number of days with positive mean daily temperatures. Seasonal dynamics of cliff top retreat revealed rapid thermo-denudation rates of −10.2 ± 4.5 m a −1 in mid-summer and thermo-abrasion rates along the coastline of −3.4 ± 2.7 m a −1 on average during the 2010-2013 observation period, currently almost twice as rapid as the mean rate of −1.8 ± 1.3 m a −1 since 1951. Our results showed a close relationship between mean summer air temperature and coastal thermo-erosion rates, in agreement with observations made for various permafrost coastlines different to the East Siberian Ice Complex coasts elsewhere in the Arctic. Seasonality of coastline retreat and interannual variations of environmental factors suggest that an increasing length of thermo-denudation and thermo-abrasion process simultaneity favours greater coastal erosion. Coastal thermoerosion has reduced the island's area by 0.9 km 2 (24 %) over the past 62 years but shrank its volume by 28 × 10 6 m 3 (40 %), not least because of permafrost thaw subsidence, with the most pronounced with rates of ≥ −11 cm a −1 on yedoma uplands near the island's rapidly eroding northern cape. Recent acceleration in both will halve Muostakh Island's lifetime to less than a century.

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Section: Interannual and Seasonal Variability Of Erosionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…12). However, according to Wobus et al (2011), thermo-niches develop even under quiet sea conditions. If they have formed during storms, the effect on erosion is combined with a certain delay and consequently not immediately measurable with remote sensing techniques.…”

Section: Interannual and Seasonal Variability Of Erosionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observing Muostakh disappear: permafrost thaw subsidence and erosion of a ground-ice-rich island in response to arctic summer warming and sea ice reduction

Günther

Overduin

Yakshina³

et al. 2015

The Cryosphere

169

172

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“…Early work in the region documented coastal retreat rates that locally reached 18 m yr −1 (during the period 1950-1980) (Reimnitz et al, 1985(Reimnitz et al, , 1988. More re- cently Wobus et al (2011) reported local rates that reached 30 m yr −1 in the summer of 2008. At Drew Point the process of erosion is dramatic.…”

Section: Arctic Climate and Arctic Coastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The ground is dissected by massive ice wedges that extend around 4 m into the subsurface. The bluffs erode through the process of failure on an ice wedge after water levels are set up to the base of the bluffs resulting in a notch carved at the base of the coastal bluff by submarine erosion (Kobayashi, 1985;Kobayashi et al, 1999;Hoque and Pollard, 2009;Wobus et al, 2011;Barnhart et al, 2014). This failure creates a toppled block that subsequently rotates towards the sea as it degrades by the melting of interstitial ice.…”

Section: Arctic Climate and Arctic Coastsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of changing sea ice on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts

2014

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Abstract. Sea ice limits the interaction of the land and ocean water in the Arctic winter and influences this interaction in the summer by governing the fetch. In many parts of the Arctic, the open-water season is increasing in duration and summertime sea-ice extents are decreasing. Sea ice provides a first-order control on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts to erosion, inundation, and damage to settlements and infrastructures by ocean water. We ask how the changing sea-ice cover has influenced coastal erosion over the satellite record. First, we present a pan-Arctic analysis of satellite-based sea-ice concentration specifically along the Arctic coasts. The median length of the 2012 open-water season, in comparison to 1979, expanded by between 1.5 and 3-fold by Arctic Sea sector, which allows for open water during the stormy Arctic fall. Second, we present a case study of Drew Point, Alaska, a site on the Beaufort Sea, characterized by ice-rich permafrost and rapid coastal-erosion rates, where both the duration of the open-water season and distance to the sea-ice edge, particularly towards the northwest, have increased. At Drew Point, winds from the northwest result in increased water levels at the coast and control the process of submarine notch incision, the rate-limiting step of coastal retreat. When open-water conditions exist, the distance to the sea ice edge exerts control on the water level and wave field through its control on fetch. We find that the extreme values of water-level setup have increased consistently with increasing fetch.

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“…For instance, ice-poor parts of slump headwalls can fail upon reaching a sufficient thaw depth or when undercut by ablating material underneath (McRoberts and Morgenstern,25 1974; Wobus et al, 2011), although this also occurs earlier in the thaw period, potentially accounting for some of the earlier peaks (e.g. Fig.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sub-seasonal thaw slump mass wasting is not consistently energy limited at the landscape scale

Zwieback¹,

Kokelj²,

Günther³

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Abstract. Predicting future thaw slump activity requires a sound understanding of the atmospheric drivers and geomorphic controls on mass wasting across a range of time scales. On sub-seasonal time scales, sparse measurements indicate that mass wasting at active slumps is often limited by the energy available for melting ground ice, but other factors such as rainfall or the formation of an insulating veneer may also be relevant. To study the sub-seasonal drivers, we derive topographic changes from single-pass radar interferometric data acquired by the TanDEM-X satellite (12 m resolution). The high vertical precision 5 (around 30 cm), frequent observations (11 days) and large coverage (5000 km2) allow us to track volume losses as drivers such as the available energy change during summer in two study regions. We find that thaw slumps in the Tuktoyaktuk coastlands, Canada, are not energy limited in June, as they undergo limited mass wasting (height loss of around 0 cm/day) despite the ample available energy, indicating the widespread presence of an insulating snow or debris veneer. Later in summer, height losses generally increase (around 3 cm/day), but they do so in distinct ways. For many slumps, mass wasting tracks the available 10 energy, a temporal pattern that is also observed at coastal yedoma cliffs on the Bykovsky Peninsula, Russia. However, the other two common temporal trajectories are asynchronous with the available energy, as they track strong precipitation events or show a sudden speed-up in late August, respectively. The observed temporal patterns are poorly related to slump characteristics like the slump area. The contrasting temporal behaviour of nearby thaw slumps highlights the importance of complex local and temporally varying controls on mass wasting.

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Thermal Erosion of a Permafrost Coastline: Improving Process-Based Models Using Time-Lapse Photography

Cited by 54 publications

References 23 publications

Observing Muostakh disappear: permafrost thaw subsidence and erosion of a ground-ice-rich island in response to arctic summer warming and sea ice reduction

Observing Muostakh disappear: permafrost thaw subsidence and erosion of a ground-ice-rich island in response to arctic summer warming and sea ice reduction

The effect of changing sea ice on the physical vulnerability of Arctic coasts

Sub-seasonal thaw slump mass wasting is not consistently energy limited at the landscape scale

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