Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic
Climate warming in regions of ice‐rich permafrost can result in widespread thermokarst development, which reconfigures the landscape and damages infrastructure. We present multisite time series observations which couple ground temperature measurements with thermokarst development in a region of very...
Published in: | Geophysical Research Letters |
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ftawi:oai:epic.awi.de:50301 2023-05-15T14:27:38+02:00 Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic Farquharson, Louise M. Romanovsky, Vladimir E. Cable, William L. Walker, Donald A. Kokelj, Steven V. Nicolsky, Dmitry 2019-06-10 application/pdf https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/1/Farquharson_et_al-2019-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187 https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.c7acc66e-de4b-41a8-b3c6-95385897be93 https://hdl.handle.net/ unknown Wiley https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/1/Farquharson_et_al-2019-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Farquharson, L. M. , Romanovsky, V. E. , Cable, W. L. orcid:0000-0002-7951-3946 , Walker, D. A. , Kokelj, S. V. and Nicolsky, D. (2019) Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic , Geophysical Research Letters, 46 (12), pp. 6681-6689 . doi:10.1029/2019GL082187 <https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187> , hdl:10013/epic.c7acc66e-de4b-41a8-b3c6-95385897be93 EPIC3Geophysical Research Letters, Wiley, 46(12), pp. 6681-6689, ISSN: 0094-8276 Article isiRev 2019 ftawi https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187 2021-12-24T15:44:58Z Climate warming in regions of ice‐rich permafrost can result in widespread thermokarst development, which reconfigures the landscape and damages infrastructure. We present multisite time series observations which couple ground temperature measurements with thermokarst development in a region of very cold permafrost. In the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 and 2016, a series of anomalously warm summers caused mean thawing indices to be 150–240% above the 1979–2000 normal resulting in up to 90 cm of subsidence over the 12‐year observation period. Our data illustrate that despite low mean annual ground temperatures, very cold permafrost (<−10 °C) with massive ground ice close to the surface is highly vulnerable to rapid permafrost degradation and thermokarst development. We suggest that this is due to little thermal buffering from soil organic layers and near‐surface vegetation, and the presence of near‐surface ground ice. Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under representative concentration pathway version 4.5. Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Thermokarst Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) Arctic Geophysical Research Letters 46 12 6681 6689 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar- and Marine Research (AWI): ePIC (electronic Publication Information Center) |
op_collection_id |
ftawi |
language |
unknown |
description |
Climate warming in regions of ice‐rich permafrost can result in widespread thermokarst development, which reconfigures the landscape and damages infrastructure. We present multisite time series observations which couple ground temperature measurements with thermokarst development in a region of very cold permafrost. In the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 and 2016, a series of anomalously warm summers caused mean thawing indices to be 150–240% above the 1979–2000 normal resulting in up to 90 cm of subsidence over the 12‐year observation period. Our data illustrate that despite low mean annual ground temperatures, very cold permafrost (<−10 °C) with massive ground ice close to the surface is highly vulnerable to rapid permafrost degradation and thermokarst development. We suggest that this is due to little thermal buffering from soil organic layers and near‐surface vegetation, and the presence of near‐surface ground ice. Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under representative concentration pathway version 4.5. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Farquharson, Louise M. Romanovsky, Vladimir E. Cable, William L. Walker, Donald A. Kokelj, Steven V. Nicolsky, Dmitry |
spellingShingle |
Farquharson, Louise M. Romanovsky, Vladimir E. Cable, William L. Walker, Donald A. Kokelj, Steven V. Nicolsky, Dmitry Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
author_facet |
Farquharson, Louise M. Romanovsky, Vladimir E. Cable, William L. Walker, Donald A. Kokelj, Steven V. Nicolsky, Dmitry |
author_sort |
Farquharson, Louise M. |
title |
Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
title_short |
Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
title_full |
Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
title_fullStr |
Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic |
title_sort |
climate change drives widespread and rapid thermokarst development in very cold permafrost in the canadian high arctic |
publisher |
Wiley |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/ https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/1/Farquharson_et_al-2019-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187 https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.c7acc66e-de4b-41a8-b3c6-95385897be93 https://hdl.handle.net/ |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Thermokarst |
genre_facet |
Arctic Arctic Climate change Ice permafrost Thermokarst |
op_source |
EPIC3Geophysical Research Letters, Wiley, 46(12), pp. 6681-6689, ISSN: 0094-8276 |
op_relation |
https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50301/1/Farquharson_et_al-2019-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf https://hdl.handle.net/ Farquharson, L. M. , Romanovsky, V. E. , Cable, W. L. orcid:0000-0002-7951-3946 , Walker, D. A. , Kokelj, S. V. and Nicolsky, D. (2019) Climate Change Drives Widespread and Rapid Thermokarst Development in Very Cold Permafrost in the Canadian High Arctic , Geophysical Research Letters, 46 (12), pp. 6681-6689 . doi:10.1029/2019GL082187 <https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187> , hdl:10013/epic.c7acc66e-de4b-41a8-b3c6-95385897be93 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL082187 |
container_title |
Geophysical Research Letters |
container_volume |
46 |
container_issue |
12 |
container_start_page |
6681 |
op_container_end_page |
6689 |
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1766301473978712064 |