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- Title
Permafrost and Peatland Evolution in the Northern Hudson Bay Lowland, Manitoba.
- Authors
Dyke, Larry D.; Sladen, Wendy E.
- Abstract
The northern Hudson Bay lowland includes the largest area of frozen peat plateau bog in Canada. Polar bear denning habitat, caribou forage, carbon storage, and wetland drainage control provided by peat plateaus will be affected if post-Little Ice Age warming continues. Mapping and thermal modeling of frozen peat plateau stability indicate that permafrost peatlands are stable at a mean annual air temperature as warm as -3.5°C. In the peat plateaus of the northern lowland, permafrostcan be absent at the peat plateau margins where peat plateaus border fens or lakes. Here, insulating snow accumulations permit thawed conditions at mean annual air temperatures colder than -3.5°C. Continued warming will result in expansion of thawed zones, subsidence at plateau margins, and even collapse of plateau surfaces, resulting in conversion to fen. This process has already occurred across north-central Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta since the end of the Little Ice Age, and there are signs that it is extending into the northern
- Subjects
HUDSON Bay; WAPUSK National Park (Man.); MANITOBA; SASKATCHEWAN; HUDSON Bay Lowlands (Canada); PEATLANDS -- Environmental aspects; PERMAFROST; FENS; ECOLOGY
- Publication
Arctic Journal, 2010, Vol 63, Issue 4, p429
- ISSN
0004-0843
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.14430/arctic3332