Permafrost Thaw Increases Catastrophic Lake Drainage in Northern Alaska

Environmental Research Letters, 19 November 2021

An intense period of “catastrophic” lake drainage swept across northern Alaska from 2015-2019 during a period of increased summer warming. This set one of the highest levels of rapid lake drainage on record and broke a forty-year trend of decreasing drainage. Catastrophic drainage occurs when a lake on top of permafrost rapidly loses its water within several days to weeks due to thawing, erosion, or overflow. This sometimes leads to complete loss of the lake ecosystem and any water-based species there, leading to a seasonally dry basin. Rising global temperatures have recently triggered widespread patterns of increased permafrost thaw and accelerated lake drainage across high-latitude regions. In northwestern Alaska, lake drainage rates are now ten times higher than their historical average in the 1980s, with 100-250 lakes rapidly lost each year. Authors emphasize the urgency of understanding the potential ecological consequences linked with this growing impact of global warming and permafrost degradation.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac3602