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Title: Effect of soil property uncertainties on permafrost thaw projections: A calibration-constrained analysis

Journal Article · · The Cryosphere (Online)
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [3];  [1]
  1. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  2. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  3. Univ. of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK (United States)

Here, the effect of soil property uncertainties on permafrost thaw projections are studied using a three-phase subsurface thermal hydrology model and calibration-constrained uncertainty analysis. The Null-Space Monte Carlo method is used to identify soil hydrothermal parameter combinations that are consistent with borehole temperature measurements at the study site, the Barrow Environmental Observatory. Each parameter combination is then used in a forward projection of permafrost conditions for the 21$$^{st}$$ century (from calendar year 2006 to 2100) using atmospheric forcings from the Community Earth System Model (CESM) in the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 greenhouse gas concentration trajectory. A 100-year projection allows for the evaluation of intra-annual uncertainty due to soil properties and the inter-annual variability due to year to year differences in CESM climate forcings. After calibrating to borehole temperature data at this well-characterized site, soil property uncertainties are still significant and result in significant intra-annual uncertainties in projected active layer thickness and annual thaw depth-duration even with a specified future climate. Intra-annual uncertainties in projected soil moisture content and Stefan number are small. A volume and time integrated Stefan number decreases significantly in the future climate, indicating that latent heat of phase change becomes more important than heat conduction in future climates. Out of 10 soil parameters, ALT, annual thaw depth-duration, and Stefan number are highly dependent on mineral soil porosity, while annual mean liquid saturation of the active layer is highly dependent on the mineral soil residual saturation and moderately dependent on peat residual saturation. By comparing the ensemble statistics to the spread of projected permafrost metrics using different climate models, we show that the effect of calibration-constrained uncertainty in soil properties, although significant, is less than that produced by structural climate model uncertainty for this location.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1254084
Journal Information:
The Cryosphere (Online), Vol. 10, Issue 1; ISSN 1994-0424
Publisher:
European Geosciences UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 27 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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  • Harp, Dylan; Atchley, Adam; Painter, Scott
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Cited By (10)

Estimating Seasonally Frozen Ground Depth From Historical Climate Data and Site Measurements Using a Bayesian Model journal July 2018
Feedbacks Between Surface Deformation and Permafrost Degradation in Ice Wedge Polygons, Arctic Coastal Plain, Alaska journal March 2020
Modeling the role of preferential snow accumulation in through talik development and hillslope groundwater flow in a transitional permafrost landscape journal October 2018
Hydrologic Impacts of Thawing Permafrost—A Review journal January 2016
Impacts of microtopographic snow redistribution and lateral subsurface processes on hydrologic and thermal states in an Arctic polygonal ground ecosystem: a case study using ELM-3D v1.0 journal January 2018
GlobSim (v1.0): deriving meteorological time series for point locations from multiple global reanalyses journal January 2019
Modeling the spatiotemporal variability in subsurface thermal regimes across a low-relief polygonal tundra landscape journal January 2016
Microtopographic control on the ground thermal regime in ice wedge polygons journal January 2018
Estimation of subsurface porosities and thermal conductivities of polygonal tundra by coupled inversion of electrical resistivity, temperature, and moisture content data journal January 2020
Soil Physical, Hydraulic, and Thermal Properties in Interior Alaska, USA: Implications for Hydrologic Response to Thawing Permafrost Conditions journal May 2019

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