Browsing by Subject "periglacial landforms"

The Arctic is warming with an increased pace, and it can affect ecosystems, infrastructure and communities. By studying periglacial landforms and processes, and using improved methods, more knowledge on these changing environmental conditions and their impacts can be obtained. The aim of this thesis is to map studied landforms and predict their probability of occurrence in the circumpolar region utilizing different modelling methods. Periglacial environments occur in high latitudes and other cold regions. These environments host permafrost, which is frozen ground and responds effectively to climate warming, and underlays areas that host many landform types. Therefore, landform monitoring and modelling in permafrost regions under changing climate can provide information about the ongoing changes in the Arctic and landform distributions. Here four landform/process types were mapped and studied: patterned ground, pingos, thermokarst activity and solifluction. The study consisted of 10 study areas across the circumpolar Arctic that were mapped for their landforms. The study utilized GLM, GAM and GBM analyses in determining landform occurrences in the Arctic based on environmental variables. Model calibration utilized logit link function, and evaluation explained the deviance value. Data was sampled to evaluation and calibration sets to assess prediction abilities. The predictive accuracy of the models was assessed using ROC/AUC values. Thermokarst activity proved to be most abundant in studied areas, whereas solifluction activity was most scarce. Pingos were discovered evenly throughout studied areas, and patterned ground activity was absent in some areas but rich in others. Climate variables and mean annual ground temperature had the biggest influence in explaining landform occurrence throughout the circumpolar region. GBM proved to be the most accurate and had the best predictive performance. The results show that mapping and modelling in mesoscale is possible, and in the future, similar studies could be utilized in monitoring efforts regarding global change and in studying environmental and periglacial landform/process interactions.