The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective: a northern-driven mapping collaborative toward understanding the effects of permafrost thaw
Section 1: Publication
Publication Type
Journal Article
Authorship
Kokelj, Steven V., Gingras-Hill, Tristan, Daly, Seamus V., Morse, Peter D., Wolfe, Stephen A., Rudy, Ashley C.A., Sluijs, Jurjen van der, Weiss, Niels, O'Neill, H.Brendan, Baltzer, Jennifer L., Lantz, Trevor C., Gibson, Carolyn, Cazon, Dieter, Fraser, Robert H., Froese, Duane G., Giff, Garfield, Klengenberg, Charles, Lamoureux, Scott F., Quinton, William L., Turetsky, Merritt R., Chiasson, Alexandre, Ferguson, Celtie, Newton, Mike, Pope, Mike, Paul, Jason A., Wilson, M.Alice, Young, Joseph M.
Title
The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective: a northern-driven mapping collaborative toward understanding the effects of permafrost thaw
Year
2023
Publication Outlet
Arctic Science. 9(4): 886-918
DOI
ISBN
ISSN
Citation
Kokelj, Steven V., Gingras-Hill, Tristan, Daly, Seamus V., Morse, Peter D., Wolfe, Stephen A., Rudy, Ashley C.A., Sluijs, Jurjen van der, Weiss, Niels, O'Neill, H.Brendan, Baltzer, Jennifer L., Lantz, Trevor C., Gibson, Carolyn, Cazon, Dieter, Fraser, Robert H., Froese, Duane G., Giff, Garfield, Klengenberg, Charles, Lamoureux, Scott F., Quinton, William L., Turetsky, Merritt R., Chiasson, Alexandre, Ferguson, Celtie, Newton, Mike, Pope, Mike, Paul, Jason A., Wilson, M.Alice, Young, Joseph M. (2023) The Northwest Territories Thermokarst Mapping Collective: a northern-driven mapping collaborative toward understanding the effects of permafrost thaw. Arctic Science. 9(4): 886-918.
https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2023-0009
Abstract
This paper documents the first comprehensive inventory of thermokarst and thaw-sensitive terrain indicators for a 2 million?km2 region of northwestern Canada. This is accomplished through the Thermokarst Mapping Collective (TMC), a research collaborative to systematically inventory indicators of permafrost thaw sensitivity by mapping and aerial assessments across the Northwest Territories (NT), Canada. The increase in NT-based permafrost capacity has fostered science leadership and collaboration with government, academic, and community researchers to enable project implementation. Ongoing communications and outreach have informed study design and strengthened Indigenous and stakeholder relationships. Documentation of theme-based methods supported mapper training, and flexible data infrastructure facilitated progress by Canada-wide researchers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. The TMC inventory of thermokarst and thaw-sensitive landforms agree well with fine-scale empirical mapping (69%–84% accuracy) and aerial inventory (74%–96% accuracy) datasets. National- and circumpolar-scale modelling of sensitive permafrost terrain contrasts significantly with TMC outputs, highlighting their limitations and the value of empirically based mapping approaches. We demonstrate that the multiparameter TMC outputs support a holistic understanding and refined depictions of permafrost terrain sensitivity, provide novel opportunities for regional syntheses, and inform future modelling approaches, which are urgently required to comprehend better what permafrost thaw means for Canada's North
Plain Language Summary