This Canadian Lake Will Disappear Soon, And Climate Change Is To Blame

Terrell Johnson
Published: July 27,2015 




 
Deep in the forests within Canada's Northwest Territories, there's a small lake perched on a cliff that's about to collapse. The earth that's holding it up will soon give way, scientists say, because it's made up mostly of permafrost that is slowly but surely melting thanks to climate change.
“It’s got a ways to travel,” said Steve Kokelj, a permafrost scientist with the Northwest Territories Geological Survey (NTGS), in an interview with the Canada-based Globe and Mail newspaper. “This lake happens to be perched about 600 feet above the Mackenzie Valley.”
The wall of permafrost below the lake is expected to collapse sometime this summer or fall, Kokelj says. While no homes or people live in the immediate area – the lake lies in the northern N.W.T., just over 12 miles from Fort McPherson – campers and hikers are being cautioned to avoid it.
"Once the water starts to erode the permafrost in the head of this slump, [the water] will go very very quickly," he told the CBC. There also is no warning system in place around the lake, so it's likely that no one will know for certain when the lake its set to collapse until it happens.
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The changes occuring here are emblematic of the impact of climate change across the region, NGTS scientists say, and are changing the landscape in ways not seen since the end of the last ice age some 20,000 years ago.
That's because the permafrost in this region includes a large amount of ice in what are known as headwalls, the name given to the vertical portion of a permafrost thaw slump. These start to erode when they're exposed to wind and rain, causing their ice to melt, which in turn causes the soil and rock on top to collapse.
"That exposes more ice, which also melts and extends the collapse, and the cycle keeps repeating," the Globe and Mail explains.
Because this permafrost thaw slump is located just below the lake, it is chewing away the land underneath it. Warming temperatures in recent years have led to more and more rainfall in permafrost regions like this one across Canada, chewing away more and more land.
The amount of land that has eroded away thanks to slumps – and the debris that has been unleashed when they collapse -– have doubled since the 1980s, Kokelj told the newspaper. "In the last 30 years the slumps are much bigger than they were in the past," he added.
Cameras have been installed around the lake and the valley below to record what happens when the permafrost slump below it finally collapses. "We’re just hoping the cameras don’t get obliterated by the release of water," he said.
Read more at the Northwest Territories Geological Survey.
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