Increasing impacts of extreme winter warming events on permafrost

Pascual, Didac; Johansson, Margareta

doi:10.1016/j.wace.2022.100450

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…(2018), who suggested that WWEs might cause GT cooling mainly by reducing the snowpack depth. However, there is increasing observational evidence that intense ROS events cause substantial and long‐lasting GT warming in winter (e.g., Hansen et al., 2014) through the latent heat released from refreezing of infiltrated water at the bottom of thick snowpacks (Pascual & Johansson, 2022; Westermann et al., 2011). This long‐lasting GT warming cannot be captured in LPJ‐GUESS, likely due to the lack of essential processes describing the energy and water exchanges between the atmosphere, snowpack, and soil (Figure 3).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…WWEs can affect ground temperatures (GT) in multiple ways, mostly through: (a) direct heat transfer from the air, (b) latent heat release from refreezing melt and rainwater, and (c) changing the snowpack properties, such as depth and density, which influence the energy exchanges between the atmosphere, snow, and soil. By inducing the melting of the snowpack, WWEs can further influence GT by altering surface albedo and groundwater content, which can have impacts lasting to the growing seasons (Pascual & Johansson, 2022). These WWE-associated environmental changes can strongly alter microbial activity, greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Natali et al, 2019), and permafrost and vegetation dynamics (Bruhwiler et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Accounting for Winter Warming Events in the Ecosystem Model LPJ‐GUESS: Evaluation and Outlook

Pascual,

Johansson,

Pongracz

et al. 2024

JGR Biogeosciences

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Winter warming events (WWEs) are short‐lasting events of unusually warm weather, occasionally combined with rainfall, which can cause severe ecosystem impacts by altering ground temperatures and water fluxes. Despite their importance, how large‐scale ecosystem models perform in depicting the impacts of WWEs remain largely unknown. The frequency and intensity of WWEs will likely increase further in the future, making it necessary to understand their potential impacts on high‐latitude ecosystems. In this study, we evaluated the ability of the dynamic ecosystem model Lund‐Potsdam‐Jena General Ecosystem Simulator (LPJ‐GUESS) to represent the responses of subarctic ecosystems to future WWEs, and identified model gaps hindering more accurate estimates of these responses. In response to WWEs, the model simulated substantial ground cooling (up to 2°C in winter) due to reduced snow depth (insulation), with rain on snow (ROS) exerting a marginal influence on the ground temperature responses: these modeled responses are in apparent contradiction with the strong ground warming effect of ROS reported in most observational studies. The simulated ground cooling led to changes in biogeochemical fluxes that were substantial and often comparable in magnitude (but often opposite in direction) to those from altered winter climatologies. The mismatch between the modeled and the observed ground temperature responses to WWEs highlights LPJ‐GUESS's current limitations in realistically simulating some of the effects of WWEs. These limitations likely stem from the (a) absence of a surface energy balance, (b) lack of snow‐vegetation interactions, (c) daily time‐step, and (d) simplistic water retention scheme in LPJ‐GUESS.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Accounting for Winter Warming Events in the Ecosystem Model LPJ‐GUESS: Evaluation and Outlook

Pascual,

Johansson,

Pongracz

et al. 2024

JGR Biogeosciences

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Section: Influence Of Extreme Climate Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Extreme climate events including heat waves, severe droughts, rainstorms, severe wildfires, and abnormal winter warming events are undergoing rapid changes in their frequency, extent, and intensity. [125][126][127][128] Extreme warm events appear to be becoming the new normal in the not-so-distant future, and the Earth is shifting towards a climate with heat-extremes prevailing. 129 In the polar regions, these extreme events can override the impact of long-term warming trends, and have increasingly important environmental influences on permafrost.…”

Section: Influence Of Extreme Climate Eventsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon‐cycling microorganisms in permafrost and their responses to a warming climate: A review

Yang,

Wen,

et al. 2023

Permafrost & Periglacial

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Global climate warming is accelerating permafrost degradation. The large amounts of soil organic matter in permafrost‐affected soils are prone to increased microbial decomposition in a warming climate. Along with permafrost degradation, changes to the soil microbiome play a crucial role in enhancing our understanding and in predicting the feedback of permafrost carbon. In this article, we review the current state of knowledge of carbon‐cycling microbial ecology in permafrost regions. Microbiomes in degrading permafrost exhibit variations across spatial and temporal scales. Among the short‐term, rapid degradation scenarios, thermokarst lakes have distinct biogeochemical conditions promoting emission of greenhouse gases. Additionally, extreme climatic events can trigger drastic changes in microbial consortia and activity. Notably, environmental conditions appear to exert a dominant influence on microbial assembly in permafrost ecosystems. Furthermore, as the global climate is closely connected to various permafrost regions, it will be crucial to extend our understanding beyond local scales, for example by conducting comparative and integrative studies between Arctic permafrost and alpine permafrost on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau at global and continental scales. These comparative studies will enhance our understanding of microbial functioning in degrading permafrost ecosystems and help inform effective strategies for managing and mitigating the impacts of climate change on permafrost regions.

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“…The difference of snow accumulation and melting/ ablating in areas with different vegetation cover, abnormally warm winters, very warm summers, and thick snow cover would lead to the difficulty of freeze-up of the active layer, the thawing of near-surface permafrost, and the detachment of the lowering permafrost table from the seasonal frost action, forming the supra-permafrost subaerial talik (SST). These phenomena will lead to the formation of preferential flows, SST, or open or even through talik, further resulting in an accelerated degradation of permafrost [25,47,48]. Thin snow cover or a snow-free winter may lead to a colder ground or a rapid freezing of the active layer and results in the accumulation of transient layer in the former SST and added new permafrost layer and the uplift of permafrost table, or pereletok [48,49].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influences of Snow Cover on the Thermal Regimes of Xing'an Permafrost in Northeast China in 1960s–2010s

Wang,

Jin,

Che

et al. 2024

Permafrost & Periglacial

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The distributive characteristics of snow cover and their impacting mechanisms on ground thermal regimes in Northeast China remain evasive because of limited systematic studies. In this study, based on long‐term ground‐based observational data and auxiliary topographic data, geographically weighted regression kriging (GWRK) method and the temperature at the top of permafrost (TTOP) model were used to analyze the influences of snow cover duration (SCD) and average snow depth over the SCD (ASDSCD) on the thermal regimes of Xing'an permafrost in Northeast China in the 1960s–2010s. The results show a remarkable reduction of permafrost extent in Northeast China from the 1960s to 2010s, with an average reduction rate of 4.115 × 104 km2/decade. In permafrost regions, from the 1960s to 2010s, average SCD varied between 150 and 160 days, and the regional average of ASDSCD between 8 and 14 cm. Increases in ASDSCD led to a rise of TTOP. From the 1960s to 2010s, the regional average of ASDSCD increased by 3.53 cm, and that of TTOP by 2.02°C. The research results can provide scientific basis and data support for evaluating the responses of permafrost and cold region ecosystems to climate change in Northeast China.

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Increasing impacts of extreme winter warming events on permafrost

Cited by 8 publications

References 32 publications

Accounting for Winter Warming Events in the Ecosystem Model LPJ‐GUESS: Evaluation and Outlook

Accounting for Winter Warming Events in the Ecosystem Model LPJ‐GUESS: Evaluation and Outlook

Carbon‐cycling microorganisms in permafrost and their responses to a warming climate: A review

Influences of Snow Cover on the Thermal Regimes of Xing'an Permafrost in Northeast China in 1960s–2010s

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