Home – Home – Jornals – Earth’s Cryosphere 2021 number 1

The research deals with four different hypotheses on the development of thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion based on the mathematical modeling of their morphological pattern. The models result from the mathematical morphology of landscapes, which broadly uses the random processes. The analysis revealed that each variant of the development is characterized by a specific probabilistic distribution of sizes, areas of thermokarst lakes first of all. The empirical testing was done for 17 key sites with different environmental and permafrost conditions in Western and Eastern Siberia, and Canada. Our analysis revealed that in the majority of cases the areas of the thermokarst lakes within the homogenous sections of the thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion obey the integral exponential distribution. Hence, the model of the morphological pattern corresponding to the asynchronous start of thermokarst process is valid, and the increase in the size of the lakes is proportional to the heat loss density through the side surface. Thus, the morphological pattern of the vast areas of thermokarst plains with fluvial erosion is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, which should be taken into account when predicting its development and assessing natural risks.