Allometric scaling of retrogressive thaw slumps
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract. In the warming Arctic, retrogressive thaw slumping (RTS) has emerged as the primary thermokarst modifier of ice-rich permafrost slopes, raising urgency to investigate the distribution and intensification of disturbances and to determine trajectories of landscape evolution and the cascade of effects. Tracking RTS is challenging due to constraints of remote sensing products and a narrow understanding of thaw-driven landforms, however, high-resolution elevation models provide new insights into geomorphic change. Structural traits, such as RTS depth-of-thaw or volume, can be obtained through allometric scaling. To address fundamental knowledge gaps related to area-volume scaling of RTS, a suitable surface interpolation technique was first needed to model pre-disturbance topography upon which volume estimates could be based. Among 8 methods with 32 parameterizations, Natural Neighbour surface interpolation achieved the best precision in reconstructing pre-disturbed slope topography (90th percentile Root Mean Square Difference ± 1.0 m). An inverse association between RTS volume and relative volumetric error was observed, with uncertainties <10 % for large slumps and <20 % for small-to-medium slumps. Second, a Multisource Slump Inventory (MSI) for two study areas in the Beaufort Delta (Canada) was required to characterize the diverse range of disturbance morphologies and activity levels, which provided temporally consistent information on thaw slump affected slopes and attributes. The MSI delineation of three high-resolution hillshade DEMs (airborne stereo-imagery, LiDAR, ArcticDEM) revealed temporal and spatial trends in these multi-year, chronic mass-wasting features. For example, in the Tuktoyaktuk Coastal Plains, a +38 % increase in active RTS and +69 % increase in total active surface area were observed between 2004 and 2016. However, the total area of RTS did not change considerably (+3.5 %) because the vast majority of active thaw slumping processes have occurred in association with past disturbances. Interpretation of thaw-driven change is thus dependent on how active RTS are defined to support disturbance inventories. Third, the pre-disturbance topographies, MSI digitizations, and DEMs were integrated to explore allometric scaling relationships between RTS area and eroded volume. The power-law model indicated non-linearity in the rates of RTS expansion and intensification across scale (adj-R2 of 0.85, n=1,522), but also revealed that elongated, shoreline RTS reflects outliers poorly represented by the modelling. This study highlights the importance of linking field-based knowledge to feature identification and the utility of high-resolution DEMs in quantifying rates of RTS erosion beyond tracking change in the planimetric area. Observations further suggested variation in depth-scaling of RTS populations is based on morphometry, terrain position, and complexity of the disturbance area, as well as the method and ontology by which slumps are inventoried.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".