Drying of tundra landscapes will limit subsidence-induced acceleration of permafrost thaw: Modeling Archive

• Main Authors: Painter, Scott, Jan, Ahmad, Coon, Ethan
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: 54 Environmental Sciences; Arctic; Barrow; Ice; permafrost; Tundra; wedge*; Alaska
• Online Access: http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1876200; https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1876200; https://doi.org/10.5440/1876200

This Modeling Archive is in support of a NGEE Arctic publication in review “ Drying of tundra landscapes will limit subsidence-induced acceleration of permafrost thaw ”. The study used a cryohydrology model to assess the potential risk of abrupt permafrost thaw triggered by melting ground ice, a key open question associated with permafrost response to a warming Arctic. The spatially resolved simulations are for a small catchment 465 ice-wedge polygons in polygonal tundra near Utqiaġvik, Alaska in the high-emissions RCP8.5 climate scenario. The simulations are compared to runoff, evapotranspiration and subsidence in the current climate and agree well. The study used the ATS code configured as an intermediate-scale cryohydrology model (Advanced Terrestrial Simulator, Version ngee_ism_v2 https://github.com/amanzi/amanzi/releases/tag/ngee_ism_v2 ). The archive includes input files for spinup (1985 to 2005) and projections (2006 to 2100 – the manuscript reports 2006 to 2098). Three of the projections include the effects of subsidence and microtopography change with different depth profiles of ice content corresponding to the median, 20th percentile and 80th percentile. The fourth projection has subsidence turnoff and uses the reference case (median) ice content. Spatially averaged or aggregated output variables are included for the projections. Selected checkpoint files for the projections and postprocessing scripts are also included. Files included are *.xml; *.h5; *.exo; *.py; *.sh, *. nb, mesh files, and a tar.gz file. The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic), was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and ...