Articles | Volume 16, issue 7
https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-16-2837-2022
© Author(s) 2022. 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-16-2837-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
19 Jul 2022
Research article |
| 19 Jul 2022
| 19 Jul 2022
Contrasted geomorphological and limnological properties of thermokarst lakes formed in buried glacier ice and ice-wedge polygon terrain
Stéphanie Coulombe
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Polar Knowledge Canada, Cambridge Bay, X0B 0C0, Canada
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal,
Montréal, H2V 2B8, Canada
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Daniel Fortier
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal,
Montréal, H2V 2B8, Canada
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Frédéric Bouchard
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Department of Applied Geomatics, Université de Sherbrooke,
Sherbrooke, J1K 2R1, Canada
Michel Paquette
Ecofish Research Ltd, Squamish, V8B 0V2, Canada
Simon Charbonneau
Department of Geography, Université de Montréal,
Montréal, H2V 2B8, Canada
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Denis Lacelle
Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics, University of
Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N 6N5, Canada
Isabelle Laurion
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Centre Eau Terre Environnement, Institut national de la recherche
scientifique, Quebec City, G1K 9A9, Canada
Reinhard Pienitz
Centre for Northern Studies, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V
0A6, Canada
Department of Geography, Université Laval, Quebec City, G1V 0A6,
Canada
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EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5257, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-5257, 2025
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Biogeosciences (BG).
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In the Arctic, thawing permafrost creates many small ponds that release greenhouse gases. We collected water from 15 ponds in the Canadian Arctic and conducted a 188–day experiment to see how bacteria use carbon in summer. They consumed about one-third of the available carbon in 100 days, and adding nutrients made no difference. Since they prefer fresh plant matter, longer growing seasons could boost gas emissions from new plant carbon as the warming Arctic landscape continues to change.
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15 million years ago, the McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica were dominated by a tundra environment. In contrast, the modern environment is amongst the coldest and driest on Earth. Using a permafrost core, this paper investigates the shift from a tundra- to a bacteria-dominated landscape. By differentiating between ancient and modern organic material, we further our understanding of preservation of ancient organic material and its response and contribution to future climate change.
Anna-Maria Virkkala, Isabel Wargowsky, Judith Vogt, McKenzie A. Kuhn, Simran Madaan, Richard O'Keefe, Tiffany Windholz, Kyle A. Arndt, Brendan M. Rogers, Jennifer D. Watts, Kelcy Kent, Mathias Göckede, David Olefeldt, Gerard Rocher-Ros, Edward A. G. Schuur, David Bastviken, Kristoffer Aalstad, Kelly Aho, Joonatan Ala-Könni, Haley Alcock, Inge Althuizen, Christopher D. Arp, Jun Asanuma, Katrin Attermeyer, Mika Aurela, Sivakiruthika Balathandayuthabani, Alan Barr, Maialen Barret, Ochirbat Batkhishig, Christina Biasi, Mats P. Björkman, Andrew Black, Elena Blanc-Betes, Pascal Bodmer, Julia Boike, Abdullah Bolek, Frédéric Bouchard, Ingeborg Bussmann, Lea Cabrol, Eleonora Canfora, Sean Carey, Karel Castro-Morales, Namyi Chae, Andres Christen, Torben R. Christensen, Casper T. Christiansen, Housen Chu, Graham Clark, Francois Clayer, Patrick Crill, Christopher Cunada, Scott J. Davidson, Joshua F. Dean, Sigrid Dengel, Matteo Detto, Catherine Dieleman, Florent Domine, Egor Dyukarev, Colin Edgar, Bo Elberling, Craig A. Emmerton, Eugenie Euskirchen, Grant Falvo, Thomas Friborg, Michelle Garneau, Mariasilvia Giamberini, Mikhail V. Glagolev, Miquel A. Gonzalez-Meler, Gustaf Granath, Jón Guðmundsson, Konsta Happonen, Yoshinobu Harazono, Lorna Harris, Josh Hashemi, Nicholas Hasson, Janna Heerah, Liam Heffernan, Manuel Helbig, Warren Helgason, Michal Heliasz, Greg Henry, Geert Hensgens, Tetsuya Hiyama, Macall Hock, David Holl, Beth Holmes, Jutta Holst, Thomas Holst, Gabriel Hould-Gosselin, Elyn Humphreys, Jacqueline Hung, Jussi Huotari, Hiroki Ikawa, Danil V. Ilyasov, Mamoru Ishikawa, Go Iwahana, Hiroki Iwata, Marcin Antoni Jackowicz-Korczynski, Joachim Jansen, Järvi Järveoja, Vincent E. J. Jassey, Rasmus Jensen, Katharina Jentzsch, Robert G. Jespersen, Carl-Fredrik Johannesson, Chersity P. Jones, Anders Jonsson, Ji Young Jung, Sari Juutinen, Evan Kane, Jan Karlsson, Sergey Karsanaev, Kuno Kasak, Julia Kelly, Kasha Kempton, Marcus Klaus, George W. Kling, Natacha Kljun, Jacqueline Knutson, Hideki Kobayashi, John Kochendorfer, Kukka-Maaria Kohonen, Pasi Kolari, Mika Korkiakoski, Aino Korrensalo, Pirkko Kortelainen, Egle Koster, Kajar Koster, Ayumi Kotani, Praveena Krishnan, Juliya Kurbatova, Lars Kutzbach, Min Jung Kwon, Ethan D. Kyzivat, Jessica Lagroix, Theodore Langhorst, Elena Lapshina, Tuula Larmola, Klaus S. Larsen, Isabelle Laurion, Justin Ledman, Hanna Lee, A. Joshua Leffler, Lance Lesack, Anders Lindroth, David Lipson, Annalea Lohila, Efrén López-Blanco, Vincent L. St. Louis, Erik Lundin, Misha Luoto, Takashi Machimura, Marta Magnani, Avni Malhotra, Marja Maljanen, Ivan Mammarella, Elisa Männistö, Luca Belelli Marchesini, Phil Marsh, Pertti J. Martkainen, Maija E. Marushchak, Mikhail Mastepanov, Alex Mavrovic, Trofim Maximov, Christina Minions, Marco Montemayor, Tomoaki Morishita, Patrick Murphy, Daniel F. Nadeau, Erin Nicholls, Mats B. Nilsson, Anastasia Niyazova, Jenni Nordén, Koffi Dodji Noumonvi, Hannu Nykanen, Walter Oechel, Anne Ojala, Tomohiro Okadera, Sujan Pal, Alexey V. Panov, Tim Papakyriakou, Dario Papale, Sang-Jong Park, Frans-Jan W. Parmentier, Gilberto Pastorello, Mike Peacock, Matthias Peichl, Roman Petrov, Kyra St. Pierre, Norbert Pirk, Jessica Plein, Vilmantas Preskienis, Anatoly Prokushkin, Jukka Pumpanen, Hilary A. Rains, Niklas Rakos, Aleski Räsänen, Helena Rautakoski, Riika Rinnan, Janne Rinne, Adrian Rocha, Nigel Roulet, Alexandre Roy, Anna Rutgersson, Aleksandr F. Sabrekov, Torsten Sachs, Erik Sahlée, Alejandro Salazar, Henrique Oliveira Sawakuchi, Christopher Schulze, Roger Seco, Armando Sepulveda-Jauregui, Svetlana Serikova, Abbey Serrone, Hanna M. Silvennoinen, Sofie Sjogersten, June Skeeter, Jo Snöälv, Sebastian Sobek, Oliver Sonnentag, Emily H. Stanley, Maria Strack, Lena Strom, Patrick Sullivan, Ryan Sullivan, Anna Sytiuk, Torbern Tagesson, Pierre Taillardat, Julie Talbot, Suzanne E. Tank, Mario Tenuta, Irina Terenteva, Frederic Thalasso, Antoine Thiboult, Halldor Thorgeirsson, Fenix Garcia Tigreros, Margaret Torn, Amy Townsend-Small, Claire Treat, Alain Tremblay, Carlo Trotta, Eeva-Stiina Tuittila, Merritt Turetsky, Masahito Ueyama, Muhammad Umair, Aki Vähä, Lona van Delden, Maarten van Hardenbroek, Andrej Varlagin, Ruth K. Varner, Elena Veretennikova, Timo Vesala, Tarmo Virtanen, Carolina Voigt, Jorien E. Vonk, Robert Wagner, Katey Walter Anthony, Qinxue Wang, Masataka Watanabe, Hailey Webb, Jeffrey M. Welker, Andreas Westergaard-Nielsen, Sebastian Westermann, Jeffrey R. White, Christian Wille, Scott N. Williamson, Scott Zolkos, Donatella Zona, and Susan M. Natali
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Preprint under review for ESSD
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Permafrost is widespread in the Northern Hemisphere and is thawing due to climate warming, impacting energy and mass transfers. Small streams emerge alongside lakes when ice in the ground melts away, potentially accelerating thawing and biogeochemical activity in a positive feedback cycle. This study provides a comprehensive dataset on these little-studied streams, including thermally and hydrologically important variables essential for improving numerical models.
Amélie Pouliot, Isabelle Laurion, Antoine Thiboult, and Daniel F. Nadeau
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In the Arctic tundra, climate change is transforming the landscape, and this may impact wildlife. We focus on three nesting bird species and the islets they select as refuges from their main predator, the Arctic fox. A geomorphological process, ice-wedge polygon degradation, was found to play a key role in creating these refuges. This process is likely to affect predator–prey dynamics in the Arctic tundra, highlighting the connections between nature's physical and ecological systems.
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For vast northern watersheds, hydrological data are often sparse and incomplete. Our study used remote sensing and clustering to produce classifications of the George River watershed (GRW). Results show two types of subwatersheds with different hydrological behaviors. The GRW experienced a homogenization of subwatershed types likely due to an increase in vegetation productivity, which could explain the measured decline of 1 % (~0.16 km3 y−1) in the George River’s discharge since the mid-1970s.
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Biogeosciences, 19, 3959–3977, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3959-2022, https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-3959-2022, 2022
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Dissolved organic matter collected at the end of winter from a peatland thermokarst lake was highly transformed and degraded by sunlight, leading to bacterial stimulation and CO2 production, but a fraction was also potentially lost by photoflocculation. Over 18 days, 18 % of the incubated dissolved organic matter was lost under sunlight, while dark bacterial degradation was negligible. Sunlight could have a marked effect on carbon cycling in organic-rich thermokarst lakes after ice-off.
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The Cryosphere, 15, 479–484, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-479-2021, https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-15-479-2021, 2021
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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.
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Short summary
Buried glacier ice is widespread in Arctic regions that were once covered by glaciers and ice sheets. In this study, we investigated the influence of buried glacier ice on the formation of Arctic tundra lakes on Bylot Island, Nunavut. Our results suggest that initiation of deeper lakes was triggered by the melting of buried glacier ice. Given future climate projections, the melting of glacier ice permafrost could create new aquatic ecosystems and strongly modify existing ones.
Buried glacier ice is widespread in Arctic regions that were once covered by glaciers and ice...
