Vegetation Distribution and Biophysics, Permafrost, and Feedback Mechanisms to Arctic Change ...

• Main Author: Zhou, Wenbo
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: My University 2023
• Subjects: Arctic change; vegetation encroachment; permafrost degradation; surface ground heat flux; uncertainty quantification; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Engineering; Arctic; albedo; Climate change; Global warming; permafrost; Tundra
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.7302/7245; http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/176396

The Arctic terrestrial ecosystems have been changing in response to global warming over the past decades. Studies reported shrub and tree expansion into tundra ecosystems. This process will have feedback on climate change through changes in albedo, evapotranspiration, and the carbon cycle. However, vegetation is not shifting uniformly towards the tundra area. Factors that control this encroachment need to be identified and the underlying mechanism of their interaction with vegetation distribution patterns needs to be explained at a regional and local scale. Meanwhile, historical field observations of ground soil temperatures have shown a general warming trend across the Arctic permafrost. The ongoing warming process of the permafrost strongly affects the regional ecosystems, infrastructure, and indigenous communities in the Arctic. However, the knowledge about the surface ground heat flux, a key factor that controls the subsurface thermal dynamics, is still limited in the cold region. Projections of future ...