Periglacial Lake Origin Influences the Likelihood of Lake Drainage in Northern Alaska

Nearly 25% of all lakes on earth are located at high latitudes. These formed by a combination thermokarst, glacial, and geological processes. Evidence suggests that the origin periglacial lake formation may be an important factor controlling likelihood to drain. However, geospatial data regarding spatial distribution these dominant Arctic subarctic limited or do not exist. Here, we use lake-specific morphological properties using Digital Elevation Model (DEM) Landsat imagery develop Thermokarst Settlement Index (TSI), which was used in with available datasets glacier history yedoma permafrost extent classify into (non-yedoma), Yedoma, Glacial, Maar lakes, respectively. This dataset evaluate influence drainage between 1985 2019 northern Alaska. The map were synthesized five-year seamless ETM+ OLI image composites. 35,000 their characterized from mosaics object-based analysis. Results indicate pattern varied origin, proportion completely drained (i.e., >60% area loss) 12.1, 9.5, 8.7, 0.0%, most vulnerable draining small thermokarst (non-yedoma) (12.7%) large (12.5%), while resilient medium-sized glacial (4.9 4.1%) (0.0%). analysis provides simple remote sensing approach estimate origins across variable physiography surficial geology, useful for discriminating versus likely change warmer wetter climates.