Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development

Fire-induced permafrost degradation is well documented in boreal forests, but the role of fires in initiating thermokarst development in Arctic tundra is less well understood. Here we show that Arctic tundra fires may induce widespread thaw subsidence of permafrost terrain in the first seven years f...

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Main Authors:	Jones, Benjamin M., Grosse, Guido, Arp, Christopher D., Miller, Eric, Liu, Lin, Hayes, Daniel J., Larsen, Christopher F.
Format:	Online
Language:	English
Published:	Nature Publishing Group 2015
Online Access:	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625366/

id	pubmed-4625366
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	pubmed-46253662015-11-03 Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development Jones, Benjamin M. Grosse, Guido Arp, Christopher D. Miller, Eric Liu, Lin Hayes, Daniel J. Larsen, Christopher F. Article Fire-induced permafrost degradation is well documented in boreal forests, but the role of fires in initiating thermokarst development in Arctic tundra is less well understood. Here we show that Arctic tundra fires may induce widespread thaw subsidence of permafrost terrain in the first seven years following the disturbance. Quantitative analysis of airborne LiDAR data acquired two and seven years post-fire, detected permafrost thaw subsidence across 34% of the burned tundra area studied, compared to less than 1% in similar undisturbed, ice-rich tundra terrain units. The variability in thermokarst development appears to be influenced by the interaction of tundra fire burn severity and near-surface, ground-ice content. Subsidence was greatest in severely burned, ice-rich upland terrain (yedoma), accounting for ~50% of the detected subsidence, despite representing only 30% of the fire disturbed study area. Microtopography increased by 340% in this terrain unit as a result of ice wedge degradation. Increases in the frequency, magnitude, and severity of tundra fires will contribute to future thermokarst development and associated landscape change in Arctic tundra regions. Nature Publishing Group 2015-10-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4625366/ /pubmed/26511650 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep15865 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
repository_type	Open Access Journal
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	US National Center for Biotechnology Information
building	NCBI PubMed
collection	Online Access
language	English
format	Online
author	Jones, Benjamin M. Grosse, Guido Arp, Christopher D. Miller, Eric Liu, Lin Hayes, Daniel J. Larsen, Christopher F.
spellingShingle	Jones, Benjamin M. Grosse, Guido Arp, Christopher D. Miller, Eric Liu, Lin Hayes, Daniel J. Larsen, Christopher F. Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
author_facet	Jones, Benjamin M. Grosse, Guido Arp, Christopher D. Miller, Eric Liu, Lin Hayes, Daniel J. Larsen, Christopher F.
author_sort	Jones, Benjamin M.
title	Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
title_short	Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
title_full	Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
title_fullStr	Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
title_full_unstemmed	Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
title_sort	recent arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development
description	Fire-induced permafrost degradation is well documented in boreal forests, but the role of fires in initiating thermokarst development in Arctic tundra is less well understood. Here we show that Arctic tundra fires may induce widespread thaw subsidence of permafrost terrain in the first seven years following the disturbance. Quantitative analysis of airborne LiDAR data acquired two and seven years post-fire, detected permafrost thaw subsidence across 34% of the burned tundra area studied, compared to less than 1% in similar undisturbed, ice-rich tundra terrain units. The variability in thermokarst development appears to be influenced by the interaction of tundra fire burn severity and near-surface, ground-ice content. Subsidence was greatest in severely burned, ice-rich upland terrain (yedoma), accounting for ~50% of the detected subsidence, despite representing only 30% of the fire disturbed study area. Microtopography increased by 340% in this terrain unit as a result of ice wedge degradation. Increases in the frequency, magnitude, and severity of tundra fires will contribute to future thermokarst development and associated landscape change in Arctic tundra regions.
publisher	Nature Publishing Group
publishDate	2015
url	https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4625366/
_version_	1613494607313633280

Recent Arctic tundra fire initiates widespread thermokarst development

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