**6. Thermokarst Lake Area Evolution in Western Siberia: RME Estimation and Testing**

Permafrost zones, which occupy a significant part of the Earth's surface, are the locales of thermokarst lakes, which accumulate greenhouse gases (methane and carbon dioxide). These gases make a considerable contribution to global climate change.

The source data in studies of the evolution of thermokarst lake areas are acquired through remote sensing of the Earth's surface and ground measurements of meteorological parameters [29,30].

The state of thermokarst lakes is characterized by their total area *S*[*t*] in a given region, measured in hectares (ha), and the factors influencing thermokarst formations—the average annual temperatures *T*[*t*], measured in Celsius (C◦), and the annual precipitation *R*[*t*], measured in millimeters (mm), where *t* denotes the calendar year.

We used the remote sensing data and ground measurements of the meteorological parameters for a region of Western Siberia between 65◦ N–70◦ N and 65◦ E–95◦ E that were presented in [31]. We divided the available time series into two groups, which formed the training collection L (*t* = 0, . . . , 24) and the testing collection T (*t* = 25, . . . , 35).
