Modelling permafrost sensitivity in Arctic forest

• Main Authors: Stünzi, Simone, Boike, Julia, Kruse, Stefan, Herzschuh, Ulrike, Langer, Moritz
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Arctic; permafrost; Siberia
• Online Access: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50303/; https://www.reklim-conference-2019.de/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/programme-16092019.pdf; https://hdl.handle.net/10013/epic.7e47c3c2-0d19-4b24-8476-3378d29a2034

Deciduous larch is a weak competitor when growing in mixed stands with evergreen taxa but is dominant in many boreal forest areas of Eastern Siberia. It is hypothesised that certain factors such as a shallow active layer and high fire frequency favour larch. Our aim is to understand how the interactions between the vegetation, permafrost and atmosphere stabilise the larch forests in Eastern Siberia. A one-dimensional land surface model (CryoGrid) is used to reproduce the energy transfer and ground thermal regime of permafrost ground and adapted for the application in vegetated areas. We implement a roughness sublayer turbulence parameterisation in a multilayer canopy to simulate an Arctic tree that responds to the local climate and permafrost conditions based on a scheme originally developed for the Community Land Model. The coupled model is capable of calculating the radiation budget, nitrogen and photosynthetic profiles, canopy turbulence and leaf fluxes of the canopy as well as the thermal conditions of the permafrost ground under several forcing scenarios.