Permafrost Thaw

(Samoylov Island, Lena River Delta - image: Simon Zwieback)

Chairs

Julia Boike
AWI
Germany
Contact

Sarah Chadburn
University of Exeter
United Kingdom
Contact

Simon Zwieback
University of Alaska
U.S.A.
Contact

Julia Martin
AWI
Germany
Contact

Scope

Northern landscapes and infrastructure are threatened by degrading permafrost. Areas underlain by ice-rich ground are particularly prone to terrain instability in the form of collapse and slumping. Current Earth System Model projections, however, do not account for thaw-induced terrain changes and associated subgrid processes. They thus cannot represent the impacts on and feedbacks with ecosystem functioning, hydrology and carbon turnover.

Towards our goal of predicting permafrost thaw dynamics, we will use targeted data collection that can feed into models to test the following hypothesis:

The speed and intensity of landscape-scale permafrost thaw are underestimated when abrupt thaw processes (with focus on subgrid-scale processes of subsidence, altered drainage and ecosystem responses) are not explicitly modelled.

The permafrost thaw action group will guide community-driven data acquisition and synthesis efforts across circum-Arctic gradients in permafrost and climate conditions. We strive to generate high-quality records of key variables such as snow depth and ground ice contents. The development and sharing of field and data protocols is central to our strategy.

Lena River Delta (image: Simon Zwieback)

Samoylov observatory, Lena River Delta (image: Peter Schreiber, 2018)

T-MOSAiC Activities

The T-MOSAiC permafrost thaw Action Group have developed a sampling protocol:
Standardized monitoring of the permafrost thaw: a user-friendly, multi-parameter protocol and can be accessed here.
The protocol provides a guideline for standardized collection of field data for quantifying permafrost thaw. It addresses the need for integrated observations of multiple connected components of permafrost landscapes, including soils, snow and vegetation. Multi-parameter observations are necessary to understand and predict permafrost thaw, which is increasingly affecting infrastructure, ecosystems and human livelihoods. Please join our data collection campaign if you live in or visit any permafrost region. The measurements are simple to take and upload (see Downloads section, below).
The protocol is structured according to spheres (and parameters): snow (snow depth), permafrost (thaw depth), vegetation (vegetation height), water (water level) and soil (texture and structure). The figure below summarizes the measurements.

Figure: Spheres with the associated parameters, measurement modes and observation timings along one transect over one seasonal cycle

→ Paper and protocol:

https://doi.org/10.1139/AS-2021-0007

→ myThaw app
Based on the protocol we released our mobile app myThaw for smartphones, tablets and personal computers. You can use myThaw to enter your data and upload it to the T-MOSAiC permafrost thaw database.