Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior
The recent widespread thaw of permafrost has led to observations of explosive gas emissions, which expel ice and soil debris and leave behind large craters. This phenomenon appears to be caused by a buildup of pressure from below the permafrost, possibly due to gas released as permafrost melts, foll...
Main Authors: | , |
---|---|
Format: | Report |
Language: | unknown |
Published: |
arXiv
2018
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12370 |
id |
ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftdatacite:10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 2023-05-15T16:36:47+02:00 Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior Hill, Kaitlin McGehee, Richard 2018 https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12370 unknown arXiv arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences Preprint Article article CreativeWork 2018 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 2022-04-01T08:54:36Z The recent widespread thaw of permafrost has led to observations of explosive gas emissions, which expel ice and soil debris and leave behind large craters. This phenomenon appears to be caused by a buildup of pressure from below the permafrost, possibly due to gas released as permafrost melts, followed by a sudden emission of gas through the surface. Although there have been some studies modeling the processes involved in crater formation using computationally complex models, we propose that these explosive events can be attributed to a simple heat diffusion-based process. Under certain boundary conditions and parameters, this may be sufficient to describe the explosive behavior observed. We demonstrate this effect by linearly increasing surface temperature from average monthly values (1961-1990) at an example latitude, which causes more dramatic melting from below the permafrost than above. This may lead to a buildup of gas pressure, if the permafrost is both continuous and has a high ice saturation, and has the potential for sudden gas release. : 5 pages, 1 figure Report Ice permafrost DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
spellingShingle |
Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences Hill, Kaitlin McGehee, Richard Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
topic_facet |
Geophysics physics.geo-ph FOS Physical sciences |
description |
The recent widespread thaw of permafrost has led to observations of explosive gas emissions, which expel ice and soil debris and leave behind large craters. This phenomenon appears to be caused by a buildup of pressure from below the permafrost, possibly due to gas released as permafrost melts, followed by a sudden emission of gas through the surface. Although there have been some studies modeling the processes involved in crater formation using computationally complex models, we propose that these explosive events can be attributed to a simple heat diffusion-based process. Under certain boundary conditions and parameters, this may be sufficient to describe the explosive behavior observed. We demonstrate this effect by linearly increasing surface temperature from average monthly values (1961-1990) at an example latitude, which causes more dramatic melting from below the permafrost than above. This may lead to a buildup of gas pressure, if the permafrost is both continuous and has a high ice saturation, and has the potential for sudden gas release. : 5 pages, 1 figure |
format |
Report |
author |
Hill, Kaitlin McGehee, Richard |
author_facet |
Hill, Kaitlin McGehee, Richard |
author_sort |
Hill, Kaitlin |
title |
Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
title_short |
Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
title_full |
Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
title_fullStr |
Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
title_full_unstemmed |
Heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
title_sort |
heat conduction through permafrost and its potential for explosive behavior |
publisher |
arXiv |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.12370 |
genre |
Ice permafrost |
genre_facet |
Ice permafrost |
op_rights |
arXiv.org perpetual, non-exclusive license http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1810.12370 |
_version_ |
1766027106005811200 |