Nature Communications
Published April 2, 2019 | 11:15 EDT (News release from University of Ottawa)
The number of landslides caused by melting permafrost ice on Banks Island, in the Canadian Arctic, increased from 63 in 1984 to 4,077 in 2013. More than 85 per cent of the slumps occurred just after four particularly warm summers. The colour of 285 lakes on the island changed as a result of increases in sediment in the water due to thaw slumps. The authors estimate that 100 million tons of ice have been lost from the island.
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Corresponding author: Antoni Lewkowicz, University of Ottawa – alewkowi@uottawa.ca