Recent Permafrost Dynamics in a Subarctic Floodplain Associated with Changing Water Levels, Québec, Canada

Abstract

We have reconstructed from tree-rings the dynamics of mineral frost mounds on the floodplain of a subarctic river (Rivière Boniface, northern Québec) likely associated with snow precipitation and temperature changes during the past centuries. Due to their peculiar location in the river bed, we have postulated that the inception and decay of frost mounds (thermokarst ponds) were associated with snow-controlled water levels of the river. The periods of establishment, growth, and mortality of spruce around and in two thermokarst ponds on the shore zone were identified. The oldest tree-ring dates show that permafrost mounds formed during a period of water lowering in the 17th century, likely in a long-enduring sequence of low waters initiated around cal AD 1150 (910 yr BP), which persisted for at least 200 yr until the beginning of the 20th century. Two main periods of spruce mortality were identified, in the late 19th century and early 20th century and in the 1950s–1960s, which corresponded to a rising river level probably due to greater snow precipitation. The patterns of spruce establishment and mortality were strikingly similar in the studied sites. The first spruce to establish were all located along the pond's edges and they were also the first ones to die; most of the youngest spruce established later in the central part of each feature, i.e., in the early to mid-1850s to 1910, and died during the 1950s–1960s. The sequence of events reported here suggests an important lowering of the Rivière Boniface during the first part of the Little Ice Age (end of the 16th century–17th century) which was drier and cold. During the second part of the Little Ice Age (mainly 19th century), greater precipitation occurred and climaxed in the 20th century when climate warmed and the river stage reached its maximum level. Changes in snow precipitation were probably more instrumental than temperature changes in the rise and fall of permafrost landforms because of the snowpack's direct influence on the soil thermal regime and river level during snowmelt.