TY - JOUR A1 - Nitze, Ingmar A1 - Grosse, Guido A1 - Jones, Benjamin M. A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Boike, Julia T1 - Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic JF - Nature Communications N2 - Local observations indicate that climate change and shifting disturbance regimes are causing permafrost degradation. However, the occurrence and distribution of permafrost region disturbances (PRDs) remain poorly resolved across the Arctic and Subarctic. Here we quantify the abundance and distribution of three primary PRDs using time-series analysis of 30-m resolution Landsat imagery from 1999 to 2014. Our dataset spans four continental-scale transects in North America and Eurasia, covering similar to 10% of the permafrost region. Lake area loss (-1.45%) dominated the study domain with enhanced losses occurring at the boundary between discontinuous and continuous permafrost regions. Fires were the most extensive PRD across boreal regions (6.59%), but in tundra regions (0.63%) limited to Alaska. Retrogressive thaw slumps were abundant but highly localized (< 10(-5)%). Our analysis synergizes the global-scale importance of PRDs. The findings highlight the need to include PRDs in next-generation land surface models to project the permafrost carbon feedback. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07663-3 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nitze, Ingmar A1 - Grosse, Guido A1 - Jones, B. M. A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Boike, Julia T1 - Author Correction: Nitze, I; Grosse, G; Jones, B.M.; Romanovsky, V.E.; Boike, J.: Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic. - Nature Communications. - 9 (2018), 5423 T2 - Nature Communications Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-08375-y SN - 2041-1723 VL - 10 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Biskaborn, Boris K. A1 - Smith, Sharon L. A1 - Noetzli, Jeannette A1 - Matthes, Heidrun A1 - Vieira, Goncalo A1 - Streletskiy, Dmitry A. A1 - Schoeneich, Philippe A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Lewkowicz, Antoni G. A1 - Abramov, Andrey A1 - Allard, Michel A1 - Boike, Julia A1 - Cable, William L. A1 - Christiansen, Hanne H. A1 - Delaloye, Reynald A1 - Diekmann, Bernhard A1 - Drozdov, Dmitry A1 - Etzelmueller, Bernd A1 - Grosse, Guido A1 - Guglielmin, Mauro A1 - Ingeman-Nielsen, Thomas A1 - Isaksen, Ketil A1 - Ishikawa, Mamoru A1 - Johansson, Margareta A1 - Johannsson, Halldor A1 - Joo, Anseok A1 - Kaverin, Dmitry A1 - Kholodov, Alexander A1 - Konstantinov, Pavel A1 - Kroeger, Tim A1 - Lambiel, Christophe A1 - Lanckman, Jean-Pierre A1 - Luo, Dongliang A1 - Malkova, Galina A1 - Meiklejohn, Ian A1 - Moskalenko, Natalia A1 - Oliva, Marc A1 - Phillips, Marcia A1 - Ramos, Miguel A1 - Sannel, A. Britta K. A1 - Sergeev, Dmitrii A1 - Seybold, Cathy A1 - Skryabin, Pavel A1 - Vasiliev, Alexander A1 - Wu, Qingbai A1 - Yoshikawa, Kenji A1 - Zheleznyak, Mikhail A1 - Lantuit, Hugues T1 - Permafrost is warming at a global scale JF - Nature Communications N2 - Permafrost warming has the potential to amplify global climate change, because when frozen sediments thaw it unlocks soil organic carbon. Yet to date, no globally consistent assessment of permafrost temperature change has been compiled. Here we use a global data set of permafrost temperature time series from the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost to evaluate temperature change across permafrost regions for the period since the International Polar Year (2007-2009). During the reference decade between 2007 and 2016, ground temperature near the depth of zero annual amplitude in the continuous permafrost zone increased by 0.39 +/- 0.15 degrees C. Over the same period, discontinuous permafrost warmed by 0.20 +/- 0.10 degrees C. Permafrost in mountains warmed by 0.19 +/- 0.05 degrees C and in Antarctica by 0.37 +/- 0.10 degrees C. Globally, permafrost temperature increased by 0.29 +/- 0.12 degrees C. The observed trend follows the Arctic amplification of air temperature increase in the Northern Hemisphere. In the discontinuous zone, however, ground warming occurred due to increased snow thickness while air temperature remained statistically unchanged. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08240-4 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 10 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Strauss, Jens A1 - Schirrmeister, Lutz A1 - Grosse, Guido A1 - Fortier, Daniel A1 - Hugelius, Gustaf A1 - Knoblauch, Christian A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Schadel, Christina A1 - von Deimling, Thomas Schneider A1 - Schuur, Edward A. G. A1 - Shmelev, Denis A1 - Ulrich, Mathias A1 - Veremeeva, Alexandra T1 - Deep Yedoma permafrost: A synthesis of depositional characteristics and carbon vulnerability JF - Earth science reviews : the international geological journal bridging the gap between research articles and textbooks N2 - Permafrost is a distinct feature of the terrestrial Arctic and is vulnerable to climate warming. Permafrost degrades in different ways, including deepening of a seasonally unfrozen surface and localized but rapid development of deep thaw features. Pleistocene ice-rich permafrost with syngenetic ice-wedges, termed Yedoma deposits, are widespread in Siberia, Alaska, and Yukon, Canada and may be especially prone to rapid-thaw processes. Freeze-locked organic matter in such deposits can be re-mobilized on short time-scales and contribute to a carbon-cycle climate feedback. Here we synthesize the characteristics and vulnerability of Yedoma deposits by synthesizing studies on the Yedoma origin and the associated organic carbon pool. We suggest that Yedoma deposits accumulated under periglacial weathering, transport, and deposition dynamics in non-glaciated regions during the late Pleistocene until the beginning of late glacial warming. The deposits formed due to a combination of aeolian, colluvial, nival, and alluvial deposition and simultaneous ground ice accumulation. We found up to 130 gigatons organic carbon in Yedoma, parts of which are well-preserved and available for fast decomposition after thaw. Based on incubation experiments, up to 10% of the Yedoma carbon is considered especially decomposable and may be released upon thaw. The substantial amount of ground ice in Yedoma makes it highly vulnerable to disturbances such as thermokarst and thermo-erosion processes. Mobilization of permafrost carbon is expected to increase under future climate warming. Our synthesis results underline the need of accounting for Yedoma carbon stocks in next generation Earth-System-Models for a more complete representation of the permafrost-carbon feedback. KW - Perennial frozen ground KW - Thermokarst KW - Arctic KW - Late Pleistocene KW - Greenhouse gas source KW - Climate feedback Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2017.07.007 SN - 0012-8252 SN - 1872-6828 VL - 172 SP - 75 EP - 86 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nitze, Ingmar A1 - Grosse, Guido A1 - Jones, Benjamin M. A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Boike, Julia T1 - Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Local observations indicate that climate change and shifting disturbance regimes are causing permafrost degradation. However, the occurrence and distribution of permafrost region disturbances (PRDs) remain poorly resolved across the Arctic and Subarctic. Here we quantify the abundance and distribution of three primary PRDs using time-series analysis of 30-m resolution Landsat imagery from 1999 to 2014. Our dataset spans four continental-scale transects in North America and Eurasia, covering ~10% of the permafrost region. Lake area loss (−1.45%) dominated the study domain with enhanced losses occurring at the boundary between discontinuous and continuous permafrost regions. Fires were the most extensive PRD across boreal regions (6.59%), but in tundra regions (0.63%) limited to Alaska. Retrogressive thaw slumps were abundant but highly localized (<10−5%). Our analysis synergizes the global-scale importance of PRDs. The findings highlight the need to include PRDs in next-generation land surface models to project the permafrost carbon feedback. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 799 KW - Carbon cycle KW - Climate change KW - Cryospheric science KW - Environmental sciences Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-426171 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 799 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Biskaborn, Boris K. A1 - Smith, Sharon L. A1 - Noetzli, Jeannette A1 - Matthes, Heidrun A1 - Vieira, Gonçalo A1 - Streletskiy, Dmitry A. A1 - Schoeneich, Philippe A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Lewkowicz, Antoni G. A1 - Abramov, Andrey A1 - Allard, Michel A1 - Boike, Julia A1 - Cable, William L. A1 - Christiansen, Hanne H. A1 - Delaloye, Reynald A1 - Diekmann, Bernhard A1 - Drozdov, Dmitry A1 - Etzelmüller, Bernd A1 - Große, Guido A1 - Guglielmin, Mauro A1 - Ingeman-Nielsen, Thomas A1 - Isaksen, Ketil A1 - Ishikawa, Mamoru A1 - Johansson, Margareta A1 - Joo, Anseok A1 - Kaverin, Dmitry A1 - Kholodov, Alexander A1 - Konstantinov, Pavel A1 - Kröger, Tim A1 - Lambiel, Christophe A1 - Lanckman, Jean-Pierre A1 - Luo, Dongliang A1 - Malkova, Galina A1 - Meiklejohn, Ian A1 - Moskalenko, Natalia A1 - Oliva, Marc A1 - Phillips, Marcia A1 - Ramos, Miguel A1 - Sannel, A. Britta K. A1 - Sergeev, Dmitrii A1 - Seybold, Cathy A1 - Skryabin, Pavel A1 - Vasiliev, Alexander A1 - Wu, Qingbai A1 - Yoshikawa, Kenji A1 - Zheleznyak, Mikhail A1 - Lantuit, Hugues T1 - Permafrost is warming at a global scale T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Permafrost warming has the potential to amplify global climate change, because when frozen sediments thaw it unlocks soil organic carbon. Yet to date, no globally consistent assessment of permafrost temperature change has been compiled. Here we use a global data set of permafrost temperature time series from the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost to evaluate temperature change across permafrost regions for the period since the International Polar Year (2007–2009). During the reference decade between 2007 and 2016, ground temperature near the depth of zero annual amplitude in the continuous permafrost zone increased by 0.39 ± 0.15 °C. Over the same period, discontinuous permafrost warmed by 0.20 ± 0.10 °C. Permafrost in mountains warmed by 0.19 ± 0.05 °C and in Antarctica by 0.37 ± 0.10 °C. Globally, permafrost temperature increased by 0.29 ± 0.12 °C. The observed trend follows the Arctic amplification of air temperature increase in the Northern Hemisphere. In the discontinuous zone, however, ground warming occurred due to increased snow thickness while air temperature remained statistically unchanged. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 669 KW - seasonal snow cover KW - thermal state KW - climate-change KW - activ-layer KW - Antarctic Peninsula KW - stability Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-425341 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 669 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Biskaborn, Boris K. A1 - Lanckman, J.-P. A1 - Lantuit, Hugues A1 - Elger, K. A1 - Streletskiy, Dmitry A1 - Cable, W. L. A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. T1 - The new database of the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - The Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) provides the first dynamic database associated with the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) and the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) programs, which extensively collect permafrost temperature and active layer thickness (ALT) data from Arctic, Antarctic and mountain permafrost regions. The purpose of GTN-P is to establish an early warning system for the consequences of climate change in permafrost regions and to provide standardized thermal permafrost data to global models. In this paper we introduce the GTN-P database and perform statistical analysis of the GTN-P metadata to identify and quantify the spatial gaps in the site distribution in relation to climate-effective environmental parameters. We describe the concept and structure of the data management system in regard to user operability, data transfer and data policy. We outline data sources and data processing including quality control strategies based on national correspondents. Assessment of the metadata and data quality reveals 63% metadata completeness at active layer sites and 50% metadata completeness for boreholes. Voronoi tessellation analysis on the spatial sample distribution of boreholes and active layer measurement sites quantifies the distribution inhomogeneity and provides a potential method to locate additional permafrost research sites by improving the representativeness of thermal monitoring across areas underlain by permafrost. The depth distribution of the boreholes reveals that 73% are shallower than 25m and 27% are deeper, reaching a maximum of 1 km depth. Comparison of the GTN-P site distribution with permafrost zones, soil organic carbon contents and vegetation types exhibits different local to regional monitoring situations, which are illustrated with maps. Preferential slope orientation at the sites most likely causes a bias in the temperature monitoring and should be taken into account when using the data for global models. The distribution of GTN-P sites within zones of projected temperature change show a high representation of areas with smaller expected temperature rise but a lower number of sites within Arctic areas where climate models project extreme temperature increase. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 523 KW - international polar year KW - thermal state KW - climate-change KW - active-layer KW - carbon Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-409612 SN - 1866-8372 IS - 523 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schaefer, Kevin A1 - Lantuit, Hugues A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Schuur, Edward A. G. A1 - Witt, Ronald T1 - The impact of the permafrost carbon feedback on global climate JF - Environmental research letters N2 - Degrading permafrost can alter ecosystems, damage infrastructure, and release enough carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) to influence global climate. The permafrost carbon feedback (PCF) is the amplification of surface warming due to CO2 and CH4 emissions from thawing permafrost. An analysis of available estimates PCF strength and timing indicate 120 +/- 85 Gt of carbon emissions from thawing permafrost by 2100. This is equivalent to 5.7 +/- 4.0% of total anthropogenic emissions for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario and would increase global temperatures by 0.29 +/- 0.21 degrees C or 7.8 +/- 5.7%. For RCP4.5, the scenario closest to the 2 degrees C warming target for the climate change treaty, the range of cumulative emissions in 2100 from thawing permafrost decreases to between 27 and 100 Gt C with temperature increases between 0.05 and 0.15 degrees C, but the relative fraction of permafrost to total emissions increases to between 3% and 11%. Any substantial warming results in a committed, long-term carbon release from thawing permafrost with 60% of emissions occurring after 2100, indicating that not accounting for permafrost emissions risks overshooting the 2 degrees C warming target. Climate projections in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5), and any emissions targets based on those projections, do not adequately account for emissions from thawing permafrost and the effects of the PCF on global climate. We recommend the IPCC commission a special assessment focusing on the PCF and its impact on global climate to supplement the AR5 in support of treaty negotiation. KW - permafrost carbon feedback KW - permafrost KW - global climate Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/9/8/085003 SN - 1748-9326 VL - 9 IS - 8 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Overduin, Pier Paul A1 - Westermann, Sebastian A1 - Yoshikawa, Kenji A1 - Haberlau, Thomas A1 - Romanovsky, Vladimir E. A1 - Wetterich, Sebastian T1 - Geoelectric observations of the degradation of nearshore submarine permafrost at Barrow (Alaskan Beaufort Sea) JF - Journal of geophysical research : Earth surface N2 - Submarine permafrost degradation rates may be determined by a number of interacting processes, including rates of sea level rise and coastal erosion, sea bottom temperature and salinity regimes, geothermal heat flux and heat and mass diffusion within the sediment column. Observations of ice-bearing permafrost in shelf sediments are necessary in order to determine its spatial distribution and to quantify its degradation rate. We tested the use of direct current electrical resistivity to ice-bearing permafrost in Elson Lagoon northeast of Barrow, Alaska (Beaufort Sea). A sharp increase in electrical resistivity was observed in profiles collected perpendicular to and along the coastline and is interpreted to be the boundary between ice-free sediment and underlying ice-bearing submarine permafrost. The depth to the interpreted ice-bearing permafrost increases from <2 m below sea level to over 12 m below sea level with increasing distance from the coastline. The dependence of the saline sediment electrical resistivity on temperature and freezing was measured in the laboratory to provide validation for the field measurements. Electrical resistivity was shown to be effective for detection of shallow ice-bearing permafrost in the coastal zone. Historical coastal retreat rates were combined with the inclination of the top of the ice-bearing permafrost to calculate mean vertical permafrost degradation rates of 1 to 4 cm yr(-1). Y1 - 2012 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2011JF002088 SN - 0148-0227 VL - 117 IS - 14 PB - American Geophysical Union CY - Washington ER -