Abstract
Conventional views suggest Arctic landscapes erode more slowly than temperate ones due to seasonal ground ice increasing sediment cohesion. However, observations of relatively rapid cold region channelisation challenge this paradigm. Using flume experiments, scaling theory and field data, we show that thawing riverbeds erode faster than unfrozen counterparts. Early in the thaw season, surface water injections advect heat and momentum fluxes into the bed, driving convective stirring that localises subsurface thawing and increases bed erosion. Resultant bed and thaw front topographies continue modulating subsurface flow paths, sustaining spatially variable erosion, which generates a stepped surface topography for subsequent thaw seasons. At the landscape scale, this coupled thermal-erosional response results in a characteristic topographic fingerprint composed of discontinuous channel segments interspersed by depositional zones. Our findings suggest that cold region landscapes respond more quickly to a changing climate relative to temperate ones and are sensitive to early season extreme weather events.
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Data availability
The collated mean particle flux for the frozen and unfrozen flume experiments, temperature data from the 2024-11-06 frozen experiment, and sideview images used to calculate the thaw depth for the 2024-11-06 frozen experiment, and a close-up video of the bed during the 2024-11-06 frozen experiment are available on figshare at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.3023478740.
Code availability
The Python scripts used to generate Figs. 1f, g, 3, and 5, as well as the workflow to track the water surface, bed surface, and thaw front surface from side-view images, are available in the data repository above. All of these scripts were run on Python version 3.10.12.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grants (A.M.J., S.M.C) and Northern Research Supplement (S.M.C); NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (C.C.) and the Toolik Tundra Award (C.C). We thank Sam Anderson, Grace Johnson, Cara James, Antero Kukko, Gordon Osinski, Simona Ruso, Axel Nobelt, and Anna Grau-Galofre for their help in the field during Summer 2024 on Tallurutit. We thank the Polar Continental Shelf Program and their Resolute Bay staff for logistical support of our 2024 expedition. We thank the Inuit of the Qikiqtani Region of Nunavut for their permission to carry out fieldwork on their land in Nunavut and the community of Qausuittuq (Resolute Bay) for welcoming us during our stay in the summer of 2024. We encourage you to learn more about the land, communities and people of the Qikiqtani Region through the Qikiqtani Inuit Association (https://www.qia.ca/about-qikiqtani/). We also thank the Inuit Heritage Trust Inc (https://www.ihti.ca/) for their guidance on the traditional name for Tallurutit.
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J.A.E., S.M.C., and A.M.J. developed the experimental set-up, methodology, physical model and scaling analysis of the experiments. J.A.E. conducted the experiments and processed the data. J.A.E. developed the conceptual model and regime space applied in Figures 4 and 5 with input from S.M.C, A. M. J. and C.C. J.A.E., A.M.J., and C.C. collected the thaw depth measurements and field photos. S.M.C. collected the drone-based photography of the field site. All authors contributed to the writing and revising of the manuscript.
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Eschenfelder, J.A., Chartrand, S.M., Jellinek, A.M. et al. Seasonal freezing increases High Arctic erosion and landscape response to climate extremes. Commun Earth Environ (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03468-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-026-03468-1
