Probabilistic Study of the Evolution of Landscape Morphological Patterns in the Cryolithozone in Relation to Climate Change

The aim of this research is to assess the nature of morphological pattern evolution related to climatic changes for the most typical landscapes in the permafrost zone, including lacustrine thermokarst plains, thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion, and floodplains, based on the probabilistic approach. Twenty-eight key sites in different physiographic environments were selected for study. The key sites were composed of different deposits, such as deltaic, lacustrine-alluvial, alluvial and alluvial-marine, fluvioglacial, and lake- marsh formations. Based on high-resolution satellite imagery, samples of quantitative characteristics of the landscape morphological patterns under consideration, such as thermokarst lake areas for thermokarst plains and arrow lengths of forming fragments for floodplains, were obtained for two survey dates with 40–55 year intervals. Samples for each site were compared using the Smirnov test. The probabilistic analysis of the quantitative characteristics of morphological patterns for typical permafrost landscapes over 40–55 years leads to the conclusion that the morphological pattern changes are rather limited. At the same time, a statistically confirmed evolution of morphological patterns is observed for a number of key sites of thermokarst plains, but the changes are practically not recorded within the floodplain landscapes in the considered time interval. The changes of morphological patterns are more intensive for the thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion in comparison with the lacustrine thermokarst plains, which can be explained by a more active response of thermal erosion to climatic changes in comparison with the thermokarst process. The observed changes in morphological patterns are limited to the western part of Western Siberia, but they show landscape differentiation even in the case of close location, which indicates the important role of sediment composition and geocryological conditions.

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