Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment
Transportation infrastructure is crucial to maintaining and expanding the social and economic activities in circumpolar regions. As the climate warms, degradation of the permafrost causes severe structural damages to the road embankment, leading to large increases in maintenance costs and reductions...
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fttriple:oai:gotriple.eu:10670/1.dl9snt 2023-05-15T15:14:44+02:00 Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment Chen, Lin Fortier, Daniel McKenzie, Jeffrey M. 2021-06-07 http://hdl.handle.net/1866/25244 en eng 10670/1.dl9snt http://hdl.handle.net/1866/25244 undefined Thèses et mémoires de l'UdeM envir geo Thesis https://vocabularies.coar-repositories.org/resource_types/c_46ec/ 2021 fttriple 2023-01-22T17:55:41Z Transportation infrastructure is crucial to maintaining and expanding the social and economic activities in circumpolar regions. As the climate warms, degradation of the permafrost causes severe structural damages to the road embankment, leading to large increases in maintenance costs and reductions in its lifespan. Meanwhile, heat advection triggered by mobile water flow can alter energy balance of the embankment and underlying permafrost and modify the thermal regime of road embankments. However, little research has been done to understand the synergy between surface and subsurface thermal processes of cold region road embankments. The overall goal of this research was to elucidate thermal interactions between the atmosphere, the road embankment, mobile water flow, and permafrost within the context of climate change. This knowledge is needed for engineered design, road maintenance, and infrastructure vulnerability assessment. The research first used new thermal analysis to characterize and identify the role of heat advection on temperature change of an experimental road embankment, Yukon, Canada in terms of magnitude, rate and thermal impact depth. It shows that soil temperature increase due to advective heat fluxes triggered by mobile water flow can be up to two orders of magnitude faster than due to atmospheric warming only. The research then presented a novel surface energy balance to quantify the amount of ground heat flux entering the embankment center and slope with varying snow depth and properties, supported by multi-year thermal and meteorological observations. My results illustrate that the surface energy budget is mainly controlled by net radiation, and less by the sensible heat flux. The ground heat flux released at embankment slope exponentially decreased with the increase of snow depth, and was linearly reduced with earlier snow cover and longer snow-covered period. A fully integrated surface energy balance and cryohydrogeological model was implemented to investigate the thermal impact of heat ... Thesis Arctic Climate change permafrost Yukon Unknown Arctic Canada Yukon |
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envir geo Chen, Lin Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
topic_facet |
envir geo |
description |
Transportation infrastructure is crucial to maintaining and expanding the social and economic activities in circumpolar regions. As the climate warms, degradation of the permafrost causes severe structural damages to the road embankment, leading to large increases in maintenance costs and reductions in its lifespan. Meanwhile, heat advection triggered by mobile water flow can alter energy balance of the embankment and underlying permafrost and modify the thermal regime of road embankments. However, little research has been done to understand the synergy between surface and subsurface thermal processes of cold region road embankments. The overall goal of this research was to elucidate thermal interactions between the atmosphere, the road embankment, mobile water flow, and permafrost within the context of climate change. This knowledge is needed for engineered design, road maintenance, and infrastructure vulnerability assessment. The research first used new thermal analysis to characterize and identify the role of heat advection on temperature change of an experimental road embankment, Yukon, Canada in terms of magnitude, rate and thermal impact depth. It shows that soil temperature increase due to advective heat fluxes triggered by mobile water flow can be up to two orders of magnitude faster than due to atmospheric warming only. The research then presented a novel surface energy balance to quantify the amount of ground heat flux entering the embankment center and slope with varying snow depth and properties, supported by multi-year thermal and meteorological observations. My results illustrate that the surface energy budget is mainly controlled by net radiation, and less by the sensible heat flux. The ground heat flux released at embankment slope exponentially decreased with the increase of snow depth, and was linearly reduced with earlier snow cover and longer snow-covered period. A fully integrated surface energy balance and cryohydrogeological model was implemented to investigate the thermal impact of heat ... |
author2 |
Fortier, Daniel McKenzie, Jeffrey M. |
format |
Thesis |
author |
Chen, Lin |
author_facet |
Chen, Lin |
author_sort |
Chen, Lin |
title |
Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
title_short |
Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
title_full |
Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
title_fullStr |
Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Thermal stability of sub-Arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
title_sort |
thermal stability of sub-arctic highways : impacts of heat advection triggered by mobile water flow under an embankment |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1866/25244 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada Yukon |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada Yukon |
genre |
Arctic Climate change permafrost Yukon |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change permafrost Yukon |
op_source |
Thèses et mémoires de l'UdeM |
op_relation |
10670/1.dl9snt http://hdl.handle.net/1866/25244 |
op_rights |
undefined |
_version_ |
1766345148069838848 |