CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Bosquet, L.; Lamoureux, S.; and Henry, G.
Date : 2008.
Title : Climate change and recent permafrost disturbance impacts on high arctic tundra vegetation.
Publication : International Arctic Change 2008 Conference. December 9-12, 2008. Quebec City, Quebec.
Issue : Conference Programme and Abstracts
Page(s) : 187.
Abstract
The effect of environmental change on High Arctic vegetation is still uncertain, particularly soil surface disturbance cause by rapid slope failures due to permafrost changes. Vegetation plots were established at the Cape Bounty Arctic Watershed Observatory (CBAWO), Melville Island, Nunavut, as part of broader effort to examine how permafrost disturbance and simulated climate change would affect the vegetation present. The study contributes to the IPY CiCAT and Cape Bounty projects and introduces plotlevel vegetation to the western Arctic Archipelago. Extensive permafrost disturbance occurred in 2007 in several areas at Cape Bounty. Active layer detachments resulted from unusually warm conditions in July 2007 that deepened the active layer and considerably increased ground ice melt, together with several major rainfalls. Both contributed to increased soil moisture and widespread slope failures that moved downslope. These slope failures entrained soil and vegetation, leaving behind areas of newly exposed soil and parent material. The landscape at Cape Bounty continues to be unstable, with slope failures increasing in size and number during the summer of 2008. The extent to which disturbances could impact vegetation through physical disruption of plant and root systems, alteration of moisture regimes, and continued instability and erosion of soil and plant material remains poorly understood and represents a major focus of this research. One of these failures is located adjacent to an area that experienced a similar slope failure at least 56 years ago. In 2007, 20 vegetation plots were established around and within these failures to examine how areas re-vegetate and plant species and communities respond to permafrost disturbance over time. Additionally, vegetative response to climate change will be experimentally studied using an International Tundra Experiment (ITEX) site that was established at Cape Bounty in the summer of 2008. ITEX open-topped chambers (OTC) and snow fences were erected to increase air temperature and water availability. Vegetation plots were established both inside and outside of the experimental footprints of these alterations. The phenology of the vegetation within each plot will be carefully measured during the summer of 2009 to determine the effect of increased temperature and/or snow depth. The results of these studies will be integrated into the broader hydrological and landscape research framework present at Cape Bounty.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology