The growth of permafrost-free bogs at the southern margin of permafrost, 1947-2010

In the high-Boreal region of NW Canada, permafrost occurs predominantly in the form of tree-covered peat plateaus within a permafrost-free and treeless terrain dominated by flat bogs. This region is experiencing unprecedented rates of thaw. Over the last several decades, such thaw has significantly expanded the permafrost-free, treeless terrain at the expense of the plateaus. This rapid change in land-cover has raised concerns over its impact on northern water resources, since remotely sensed data and ground observations indicate that the two major land-covers in this region have very different hydrological functions. Peat plateaus have a limited capacity to store water, a relatively large snowmelt water supply and hydraulic gradients that direct excess water into adjacent permafrost-free wetlands. As such, the plateaus function primarily as runoff generators. Plateaus also obstruct and redirect water movement in adjacent wetlands since the open water surfaces of the latter occupy an elevation below the permafrost table. By contrast, bogs are primarily water storage features since they are surrounded by raised permafrost and therefore less able to exchange surface and near-surface flows with the basin drainage network. Accurate estimate of the permafrost and permafrost-free areas is needed for accurate predictions of basin runoff and storage. This study examines the perimeter-area characteristics of bogs and permafrost plateaus, using fractal geometry as a basis for quantifying these properties. Image analyses are applied to aerial photographs and satellite imagery of Scotty Creek, NWT over the period 1947-2010. Preliminary analyses suggest that the expanding bogs and shrinking permafrost plateaus behave as fractals, meaning that their perimeter-area characteristics can be described by simple power equations. The area-frequency characteristics of bogs and plateaus have a hyperbolic distribution with relatively few large bogs and plateaus and numerous small ones. The bogs and plateaus have different fractal dimensions, since bogs evolve from small, simple (i.e. circular) shapes to large, complex shapes, while thaw transforms plateaus from large and complex shapes to small, simple ones. It is concluded that the size distributions of plateaus and bogs are not random but predictable. The variation in plateau edge length per unit basin area over the 1947-2010 period is demonstrated. A maximum value of the ratio was reached when permafrost covered 45-65% of the basin. Permafrost thaw driven by energy advection from adjacent bogs would therefore be greatest when the coverage of plateaus is in this range.