Developing a Model of the Morphological Pattern for Thermokarst Plains with Fluvial Erosion Involving Remote Sensing Data

Abstract

This paper reports a new variant of the model of the morphological pattern for thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion involving numerous remote sensing data. This variant of the model takes into account different trends of the thermokarst processes for watershed plains and lowered bottoms of khasyreis (drained thermokarst lakes). The model is tested at eight key sites differing in physiography, climate, and geocryology. Testing is based on high-resolution remote sensing data. The model is verified with a statistical analysis of lake area distributions within both watershed plain surface and lowered bottoms of khasyreis, demonstrating a state of dynamic balance in the course of emergence, growth, and drainage of the thermokarst lakes. The analysis shows that the morphological pattern of the thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion changes evolutionarily, with a reduction in the area of the main watershed surface according to a dependence close to exponential; the specific type of the dependence results primarily from the ratio of the lake generation density and the location density of the fluvial sources.