Changes in climate across the Arctic in recent decades and especially the increase of near-surface air temperature promote signicant changes in key natural components of the Arctic including permafrost (defined as soil experiencing subzero temperature for more than two consecutive years). Recent borehole observations exhibit signicant increase in ground temperatures below the depths of seasonal variations. Modeling studies on a global scale suggest a steady decrease in area underlain by near-surface permafrost in the northern hemisphere in recent decades. Global projections for the next century predict further permafrost degradation depending on the greenhouse gas concentration trajectory. Permafrost degradation is not only associated with climate feedbacks but can also result in signicant changes in coastal and terrestrial ecosystems and increased risks of costly infrastructural damage for Arctic settlements. In addition, permafrost plays an important role in the terrestrial part of the Arctic freshwater cycle as the volumes of frozen ground are practically impermeable for subsurface moisture transport and contain excess water in the form of ground ice. Since geophysical observations bear signicant costs in the Arctic, especially in the remote areas, simulations performed with physically based numerical models allow researchers to assess the current state of permafrost in Arctic regions and make future projections of its dynamics and resulting hydrological impacts. In this dissertation we use numerical modeling in two distinct ways: 1) to estimate current and future ground temperature distribution with high resolution on a regional scale and 2) to evaluate the role permafrost degradation plays in changes in water balance of watersheds under changing climate. First, we study the permafrost evolution of the Seward Peninsula, Alaska over the 20th and 21st century using a distributed heat transfer model. Model parameters are calibrated with a variational data assimilation and are distributed across the study domain with an ecosystem type approach. Simulations suggest that the peninsula will experience a reduction in the near surface permafrost extent of up to 90% and an average increase in ground temperature across the peninsula up to 4.4°C towards the end of the 21st century under the high greenhouse gas concentration trajectory. Second, we perform an ensemble of millennia-long experiments by simulating hypothetical idealized small-scale watersheds placed in a typical Sub-Arctic setting with a physically based distributed hydrological model. In these experiments we single out the effects of temperature dependent subsurface moisture transport by applying air temperature change in our forcing scenarios only to sub-zero temperatures within a given year. Results suggest a long-term increase in annual runoff of 7-15% and a similar decrease in evapotranspiration under a prolonged (up to a millennia) air-temperature increase. The short-term (

This book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date assessment of the key terrestrial components of the Arctic system, i.e., its hydrology, permafrost, and ecology, drawing on the latest research results from across the circumpolar regions. The Arctic is an integrated system, the elements of which are closely linked by the atmosphere, ocean, and land. Using an integrated system approach, the book’s 30 chapters, written by a diverse team of leading scholars, carefully examine Arctic climate variability/change, large river hydrology, lakes and wetlands, snow cover and ice processes, permafrost characteristics, vegetation/landscape changes, and the future trajectory of Arctic system evolution. The discussions cover the fundamental features of and processes in the Arctic system, with a special focus on critical knowledge gaps, i.e., the interactions and feedbacks between water, permafrost, and ecosystem, such as snow pack and permafrost changes and their impacts on basin hydrology and ecology, river flow, geochemistry, and energy fluxes to the Arctic Ocean, and the structure and function of the Arctic ecosystem in response to past/future changes in climate, hydrology, and permafrost conditions. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers, graduate students, environmentalists, managers, and administrators who are concerned with the northern environment and resources.

This book discusses the water and carbon cycle system in the permafrost region of eastern Siberia, Providing vitalin sights into how climate change has affected the permafrost environment in recent decades. It analyzes the relationships between precipitation and evapotranspiration, gross primary production and runoff in the permafrost regions, which differ from those intropical and temperate forests. Eastern Siberia is located in the easternmost part of the Eurasian continent, and the land surface with underlying permafrost has developed over a period of seventy thousand years. The permafrost ecosystem has specific hydrological and meteorological characteristics in terms of the water and carbon dynamics, and the current global warming and resulting changes in the permafrost environment are serious issues in the high-latitude regions. The book is a valuable resource for students, researchers and professionals interested in forest meteorology and hydrology, forest ecology, and boreal vegetation, as well as the impact of climate change and water-carbon cycles in permafrost and non-permafrost regions.

The wetlands in the Arctic Coastal Plain, Northern Alaska, support a multitude of wildlife and natural resources that depend upon the abundance of water. Observations and climate model simulations show that surface air temperature over the Alaskan arctic coast has risen in recent history. Thus a growing need exists to assess how the hydrology of these arctic wetlands will respond to the warming climate. A synthesis study was conducted combining the analysis of an extensive field campaign, which includes direct measurements of all components of the water balance, with a physically-based hydrologic model forced by downscaled climate projections. Currently, these wetlands exist despite a desert-like annual precipitation and a negative net summer water balance. Although evapotranspiration is the major pathway of water loss, there are multiple non-linear controls that moderate the evapotranspiration rates. At the primary study site within the Barrow Environmental Observatory, shallow ponding of snowmelt water occurs for nearly a month at the vegetated drained thaw lake basin. Modeling studies revealed that the duration and depth of the ponding are only replicated faithfully if the rims of low-centered polygons are represented. Simple model experiments suggest that the polygon type (low- or high-centered) controls watershed-scale runoff, evapotranspiration, and near-surface soil moisture. High-centered polygons increase runoff, while reducing near-surface soil moisture and evapotranspiration. Soil drying was not projected by the end-of-the century but differential ground subsidence could potentially dominate the direct effects of climate warming resulting in a drying of the Arctic Coastal Plain wetlands. A drier surface would increase the susceptibility to fire, which currently is a major part of the Alaskan sub-arctic but not the arctic landscape. High quality pre- and postfire data were collected in the same location in central Seward Peninsula, uniquely documenting short-term soil warming and wettening following a severe tundra fire. Overall, this research concludes that arctic and sub-arctic watershed-scale hydrology is affected by changes in climate, surface cover, and microtopographic structures. It is therefore crucial to merge hydrology, permafrost, vegetation, and geomorphology models and measurements at the appropriate scales to further refine the response of the Arctic Coastal Plain wetlands to climate warming.

A wide-ranging and up-to-date review of permafrost science, unique in presenting the Russian viewpoint. This English edition brings the standard Russian work on geocryology to a larger readership, allowing the value of the knowledge and concepts developed to be realised more widely.

"A Soil Thermal Model (STM) with the capability to operate with a 0.5-day internal time step and to be driven with monthly input data was developed for applications with large-scale ecosystem models. The use of monthly climate inputs to drive the STM resulted in an error of less than 1C̊ in the upper organic soil layer and in an accurate simulation of seasonal active layer dynamics. Uncertainty analyses identified that soil temperature estimates of the upper organic layer were most sensitive to variability in parameters that described snow thermal conductivity, moss thickness, and moss thermal conductivity. The STM was coupled to the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM), and the performance of the STM-TEM was verified for the simulation of soil temperatures in applications to black spruce, white spruce, aspen, and tundra sites. A 1C̊ error in the temperature of the upper organic soil layer had little influence on the carbon dynamics simulated for a black spruce site. Application of the model across the range of black spruce ecosystems in North America demonstrated that the STM-TEM has the capability to operate over temporal and spatial domains that consider substantial variations in surface climate. To consider how fire disturbance interacts with climate change and permafrost dynamics, the STM was updated to more fully evaluate how these factors influence ecosystem dynamics during stand development. The ability of the model to simulate seasonal patterns of soil temperature, gross primary production, and ecosystem respiration, and the age-dependent pattern of above-ground vegetation carbon storage was verified. The model was applied to a post-fire chronosequence in interior Alaska and was validated with estimates of soil temperature, soil respiration, and soil carbon storage that were based on measurements of these variables in 1997. Sensitivity analyses indicate that the growth of moss, changes in the depth of the organic layer, and nitrogen fixation should be represented in models that simulate the effects of fire disturbance in boreal forests. Furthermore, the sensitivity analyses revealed that soil drainage and fire severity should be considered in spatial application of these models to simulate carbon dynamics at landscape to regional scales"--Leaves iii-iv.