The Combination of Wildfire and Changing Climate Triggers Permafrost Degradation in the Khentii Mountains, Northern Mongolia

Munkhjargal, Munkhdavaa; Yadamsuren, Gansukh; Yamkhin, Jambaljav; Menzel, Lucas

doi:10.3390/atmos11020155

Cited by 14 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…About 30% of the increase in burned fraction after 2010 occurred in July–September, thus led to rapidly growing burned fraction in the eastern Siberia. As more consecutive permafrost exists in the eastern Siberia (Ran et al., 2021), the growing wildfires will cause long‐term ecological consequences including permafrost degradation and carbon emission (Munkhjargal et al., 2020; Ponomarev et al., 2021).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetrical Trends of Burned Area Between Eastern and Western Siberia Regulated by Atmospheric Oscillation

Zhu

Jia

2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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The periodic wildfire is a natural process of Siberian forests. Wildfire is also an important natural factor for supporting biodiversity within the Siberian boreal ecosystems (Kharuk et al., 2021). However, wildfires can cause direct economic and life loss, and release air pollutants which can deeply threaten human health. Besides, wildfires create forest canopy gaps and major disturbances to wildlife habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystem services accompanied with soil erosion and changes in ecohydrology, altering long-term physical, chemical, and biological processes in the Arctic ecosystems and causing far-reaching environmental consequences (Mack et al., 2011). Furthermore, the boreal forests and tundra ecosystems store nearly 50% of global terrestrial carbon, accounting for about one third of global soil carbon (Higuera et al., 2008). The large quantities of carbon stored in Siberian boreal ecosystems and frozen soils can be released into the atmosphere through deepening of active layer and degradation of permafrost resulting from recent Arctic warming and wildfires (Kim et al., 2020). The released carbon may alter the global carbon budget and accelerate global and Arctic warming, and thereby forming positive feedback between the accumulation of atmospheric carbon and global warming (Mack et al., 2011;Turetsky et al., 2015).More than 70% of fires, and up to 90% of the total area burned in Russia occur in Siberia (Kharuk & Ponomarev, 2017). As the northern high-latitude ecosystems are experiencing climate warming at a rate twice of the global mean warming (Serreze & Barry, 2011), the Siberian wildfire has become more active in recent years (Kelly et al., 2013). Since the end of the twentieth century, the frequency and extent of forest fires has been

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asymmetrical Trends of Burned Area Between Eastern and Western Siberia Regulated by Atmospheric Oscillation

Zhu

Jia

2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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“…In addition, permafrost degradation in the northern mountains of Mongolia can also be affected by extreme weather events, such as droughts in summer and heavy snowfall in the winter. These factors can magnify the rise in surface soil temperature, leading to a rapid degradation of permafrost and an increase in ALT (Munkhjargal et al., 2020). The permafrost in northeast China is more sensitive to climate warming than permafrost in high‐elevation and high‐latitude areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Layer Thickness in the Northern Hemisphere: Changes From 2000 to 2018 and Future Simulations

Wei

Liu

et al. 2022

JGR Atmospheres

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Permafrost is a product of cold climates and is mainly distributed in cold climatic high latitudes and high elevations in the Northern Hemisphere (Zhang et al., 1999). The permafrost regions account for approximately 22% of the land area in the Northern Hemisphere (Obu et al., 2019). Permafrost degradation may lead to greenhouse gas emissions from the decomposition of organic carbon stored in the permafrost regions, further contributing to global warming and accelerating permafrost thaw (Schuur et al., 2015).The active layer is the soil layer where water and heat are exchanged between the surface and air in permafrost areas. The freeze-thaw process of the active layer can greatly affect the hydrothermal physical properties of the soil, surface evaporation, vegetation growth, and surface albedo Zhao et al., 2019).These changes regulate exchange processes such as sensible and latent heat fluxes between the soil and the atmosphere, which significantly influence regional circulation (Zhang et al., 2014). The hydrothermal conditions within the active layer are the main factors controlling the water and energy exchange between permafrost and the atmosphere (Cheng et al., 2019), which can directly affect the ecological environment, hydrological processes, and carbon cycle in permafrost regions (Jorgenson & Osterkamp, 2005).There is great spatial heterogeneity in the active layer thickness (ALT) across the Northern Hemisphere. The ALT varied from approximately 30 cm in the Arctic and circumpolar regions to greater than 10 m in the midlatitude mountainous permafrost zone during 1990(Luo et al., 2016). The regional average ALT values were 48 cm in Alaska, 93 cm in Canada, 164 cm in the Nordic countries (including Greenland and Svalbard) and Switzerland, 330 cm in Mongolia, 476 cm in Kazakhstan, and 230 cm on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (Luo et al., 2016).During the past decades, the rate of warming in the permafrost zones in the Northern Hemisphere has been 2-3 times the global average (Hu et al., 2021;Mu et al., 2020). Global warming has led to an increase in permafrost temperature, a reduction in the extent of permafrost, and an increase in the ALT. From 1990 to 2012,

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“…Mongolian wildfires have increased due to climate change, which intensively influences natural disasters and environmental conditions. Many studies have looked into this, such as by determining the fire history from tree rings for the potential of relationships between climate change, fire, and land uses [54,55]; the effects of wildfire on runoff generation processes in mountainous forest areas [56]; wildfire and climate change's effect on permafrost degradation [57]; and wildfire risk mapping for protected areas [58]. There are other wildfire study cases that have been carried out for the Mongolian Plateau, such as a study that identified drivers and spatial distributions to predict wildfire probability [59], one that explored the growing season [60], one that performed an analysis of climate fire relationships and an evaluation of the spatial change characteristics [61], and one that analyzed the spatiotemporal wildfire pattern using satellite images [62].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Burn Severity and Monitoring of the Wildfire Recovery Process in Mongolia

Vandansambuu,

Gantumur,

et al. 2023

Fire

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Due to the intensification of climate change around the world, the incidence of natural disasters is increasing year by year, and monitoring, forecasting, and detecting evolution using satellite imaging technology are important methods for remote sensing. This study aimed to monitor the occurrence of fire disasters using Sentinel-2 satellite imaging technology to determine the burned-severity area via classification and to study the recovery process to observe extraordinary natural phenomena. The study area that was sampled was in the southeastern part of Mongolia, where most wildfires occur each year, near the Shiliin Bogd Mountain in the natural steppe zone and in the Bayan-Uul sub-province in the forest-steppe natural zone. The normalized burn ratio (NBR) method was used to map the area of the fire site and determine the classification of the burned area. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to determine the recovery process in a timely series in the summer from April to October. The results of the burn severity were demonstrated in the distribution maps from the satellite images, where it can be seen that the total burned area of the steppe natural zone was 1164.27 km2, of which 757.34 km2 (65.00 percent) was classified as low, 404.57 km2 (34.70 percent) was moderate-low, and the remaining 2.36 km2 (0.30 percent) was moderate-high, and the total burned area of the forest-steppe natural zone was 588.35 km2, of which 158.75 km2 (26.98 percent) was classified as low, 297.75 km2 (50.61 percent) was moderate-low, 131.25 km2 (22.31 percent) was moderate-high, and the remaining 0.60 km2 (0.10 percent) was high. Finally, we believe that this research is most helpful for emergency workers, researchers, and environmental specialists.

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The Combination of Wildfire and Changing Climate Triggers Permafrost Degradation in the Khentii Mountains, Northern Mongolia

Cited by 14 publications

References 46 publications

Asymmetrical Trends of Burned Area Between Eastern and Western Siberia Regulated by Atmospheric Oscillation

Asymmetrical Trends of Burned Area Between Eastern and Western Siberia Regulated by Atmospheric Oscillation

Active Layer Thickness in the Northern Hemisphere: Changes From 2000 to 2018 and Future Simulations

Assessment of Burn Severity and Monitoring of the Wildfire Recovery Process in Mongolia

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