Articles | Volume 15, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-479-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-479-2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Invited perspective article
| 
01 Feb 2021
Invited perspective article |
| 01 Feb 2021
| 01 Feb 2021
Invited perspective: What lies beneath a changing Arctic?
Jeffrey M. McKenzie
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, McGill University,
Montréal, H3A 0E8, Canada
Barret L. Kurylyk
Department of Civil and Resource Engineering and Centre for Water
Resources Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, B3H 4R2, Canada
Michelle A. Walvoord
U.S. Geological Survey, Earth System Processes Division, Denver,
Colorado, USA
Victor F. Bense
Department of Environmental Sciences, Wageningen University and
Research, Wageningen, the Netherlands
Daniel Fortier
Cold Regions Geomorphology and Geotechnical Laboratory, Department of
Geography, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Canada
Christopher Spence
National Hydrology Research Centre, Environment and Climate Change
Canada, Saskatoon, Canada
Christophe Grenier
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, IPSL/LSCE,
CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
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Climate change is altering water cycle in mountain regions as glaciers melt, but slower-degrading rock glaciers remain influential. This study examines how a rock glacier in Yukon, Canada, interacts with a riverbed, using advanced methods like thermal and time-lapse imagery. It shows that rock glaciers shape river channels, affect groundwater flow, and encourage ice formation in winter. These findings reveal how rock glaciers link mountain ice to deep groundwater, impacting water resources.
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Anna C. Talucci, Michael M. Loranty, Jean E. Holloway, Brendan M. Rogers, Heather D. Alexander, Natalie Baillargeon, Jennifer L. Baltzer, Logan T. Berner, Amy Breen, Leya Brodt, Brian Buma, Jacqueline Dean, Clement J. F. Delcourt, Lucas R. Diaz, Catherine M. Dieleman, Thomas A. Douglas, Gerald V. Frost, Benjamin V. Gaglioti, Rebecca E. Hewitt, Teresa Hollingsworth, M. Torre Jorgenson, Mark J. Lara, Rachel A. Loehman, Michelle C. Mack, Kristen L. Manies, Christina Minions, Susan M. Natali, Jonathan A. O'Donnell, David Olefeldt, Alison K. Paulson, Adrian V. Rocha, Lisa B. Saperstein, Tatiana A. Shestakova, Seeta Sistla, Oleg Sizov, Andrey Soromotin, Merritt R. Turetsky, Sander Veraverbeke, and Michelle A. Walvoord
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2887–2909, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2887-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2887-2025, 2025
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Wildfires have the potential to accelerate permafrost thaw and the associated feedbacks to climate change. We assembled a dataset of permafrost thaw depth measurements from burned and unburned sites contributed by researchers from across the northern high-latitude region. We estimated maximum thaw depth for each measurement, which addresses a key challenge: the ability to assess impacts of wildfire on maximum thaw depth when measurement timing varies.
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Climate change is altering water cycle in mountain regions as glaciers melt, but slower-degrading rock glaciers remain influential. This study examines how a rock glacier in Yukon, Canada, interacts with a riverbed, using advanced methods like thermal and time-lapse imagery. It shows that rock glaciers shape river channels, affect groundwater flow, and encourage ice formation in winter. These findings reveal how rock glaciers link mountain ice to deep groundwater, impacting water resources.
Steven Reinaldo Rusli, Victor F. Bense, Syed M. T. Mustafa, and Albrecht H. Weerts
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The Cryosphere, 18, 4743–4763, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4743-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-18-4743-2024, 2024
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Thermo-erosion gullies (TEGs) are one of the most common forms of abrupt permafrost degradation. While their inception has been examined in several studies, the processes of their stabilization remain poorly documented. For this study, we investigated two TEGs in the Canadian High Arctic. We found that, while the formation of a TEG leaves permanent geomorphological scars in landscapes, in the long term, permafrost can recover to conditions similar to those pre-dating the initial disturbance.
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Biogeosciences, 21, 3401–3423, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3401-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-21-3401-2024, 2024
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Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 28, 65–86, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-65-2024, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-28-65-2024, 2024
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Alessandro Montemagno, Christophe Hissler, Victor Bense, Adriaan J. Teuling, Johanna Ziebel, and Laurent Pfister
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We investigated the biogeochemical processes that dominate the release and retention of elements (nutrients and potentially toxic elements) during litter degradation. Our results show that toxic elements are retained in the litter, while nutrients are released in solution during the first stages of degradation. This seems linked to the capability of trees to distribute the elements between degradation-resistant and non-degradation-resistant compounds of leaves according to their chemical nature.
Emilio I. Mateo, Bryan G. Mark, Robert Å. Hellström, Michel Baraer, Jeffrey M. McKenzie, Thomas Condom, Alejo Cochachín Rapre, Gilber Gonzales, Joe Quijano Gómez, and Rolando Cesai Crúz Encarnación
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 2865–2882, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2865-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2865-2022, 2022
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Short summary
This article presents detailed and comprehensive hydrological and meteorological datasets collected over the past two decades throughout the Cordillera Blanca, Peru. With four weather stations and six streamflow gauges ranging from 3738 to 4750 m above sea level, this network displays a vertical breadth of data and enables detailed research of atmospheric and hydrological processes in a tropical high mountain region.
Christopher Spence, Zhihua He, Kevin R. Shook, Balew A. Mekonnen, John W. Pomeroy, Colin J. Whitfield, and Jared D. Wolfe
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 26, 1801–1819, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1801-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-1801-2022, 2022
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We determined how snow and flow in small creeks change with temperature and precipitation in the Canadian Prairie, a region where water resources are often under stress. We tried something new. Every watershed in the region was placed in one of seven groups based on their landscape traits. We selected one of these groups and used its traits to build a model of snow and streamflow. It worked well, and by the 2040s there may be 20 %–40 % less snow and 30 % less streamflow than the 1980s.
Chris M. DeBeer, Howard S. Wheater, John W. Pomeroy, Alan G. Barr, Jennifer L. Baltzer, Jill F. Johnstone, Merritt R. Turetsky, Ronald E. Stewart, Masaki Hayashi, Garth van der Kamp, Shawn Marshall, Elizabeth Campbell, Philip Marsh, Sean K. Carey, William L. Quinton, Yanping Li, Saman Razavi, Aaron Berg, Jeffrey J. McDonnell, Christopher Spence, Warren D. Helgason, Andrew M. Ireson, T. Andrew Black, Mohamed Elshamy, Fuad Yassin, Bruce Davison, Allan Howard, Julie M. Thériault, Kevin Shook, Michael N. Demuth, and Alain Pietroniro
Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 25, 1849–1882, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1849-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-25-1849-2021, 2021
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This article examines future changes in land cover and hydrological cycling across the interior of western Canada under climate conditions projected for the 21st century. Key insights into the mechanisms and interactions of Earth system and hydrological process responses are presented, and this understanding is used together with model application to provide a synthesis of future change. This has allowed more scientifically informed projections than have hitherto been available.
Mikkel Toft Hornum, Andrew Jonathan Hodson, Søren Jessen, Victor Bense, and Kim Senger
The Cryosphere, 14, 4627–4651, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4627-2020, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-4627-2020, 2020
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In Arctic fjord valleys, considerable amounts of methane may be stored below the permafrost and escape directly to the atmosphere through springs. A new conceptual model of how such springs form and persist is presented and confirmed by numerical modelling experiments: in uplifted Arctic valleys, freezing pressure induced at the permafrost base can drive the flow of groundwater to the surface through vents in frozen ground. This deserves attention as an emission pathway for greenhouse gasses.
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Short summary
Groundwater is an underappreciated catalyst of environmental change in a warming Arctic. We provide evidence of how changing groundwater systems underpin surface changes in the north, and we argue for research and inclusion of cryohydrogeology, the study of groundwater in cold regions.
Groundwater is an underappreciated catalyst of environmental change in a warming Arctic. We...
