New study finds Alaska wetlands shrinking
A team of geoscientists based out of Texas have added to the growing number of studies pointing to a warming Arctic climate. Using newly available remote-sensing technology, scientists at the Southwest Research Institute found the Ahnewetut Wetlands in Kobuk Valley National Park, located in southwestern Alaska, have experienced an accelerated loss of surface water over the past 30 years
The researchers compared features known as thaw lakes and ponds, which are bodies of freshwater, usually shallow, which form in depressions due to melting permafrost. It’s how most Arctic lakes are formed; hundreds of small thaw lakes and ponds stretch across the park’s lowland areas, according to the National Park Service.
The Kobuk Valley is littered with the small collections of water — tens of thousands of shallow lakes are distributed across the Arctic as a whole — but over the past two consecutive 27-year periods they’ve been shrinking faster, according to the institute’s findings. Those periods coincide with a well-known cooling and warming cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a period of about five decades.
more at: Alaska Dispatch