A Novel Framework to Project the Permafrost Fate With Explicit Quantification of Soil Property and Future Climate Uncertainties

Abstract This study develops a novel general framework to project the permafrost fate with rigorous uncertainty quantification to assess dominant sources. Borehole temperature records from three sites in the Russian western Arctic are used to constrain the uncertainty of a high‐fidelity freeze‐thaw model. Projections from 9 Global Climate Models (GCM) are stochastically downscaled to generate future trajectories of surface ground heat flux. Under the two emission scenarios SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5, the projected average thawing depths by 2100 vary from 0.4 to 14.4 m or 2.1 to 17.7 m, and the increase in the top 10 m average temperature from 2015 to 2100 is 1.2–2.7°C or 1.9–3.0°C. The results show that the freeze‐thaw model uncertainty can sometimes dominate over that of GCM outputs, calling for site‐specific information to improve model accuracy. The framework is applicable for understanding permafrost degradation and related uncertainties at larger scales.

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Publication Details

Journal
Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface
Published
2025-10-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1029/2024jf008168
Primary Topic
Climate change and permafrost
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

A Novel Framework to Project the Permafrost Fate With Explicit Quantification of Soil Property and Future Climate Uncertainties

Tianqi Zhang, Wenbo Zhou, V. Y. Ivanov, Alexander Vasiliev et al.
Journal of Geophysical Research Earth Surface
Climate change and permafrost
article

A Novel Framework to Project the Permafrost Fate With Explicit Quantification of Soil Property and Future Climate Uncertainties

Tianqi Zhang, Wenbo Zhou, V. Y. Ivanov, Alexander Vasiliev, Liujing Zhang, Victor Valdayskikh, Modi Zhu, Valeriy Mazepa, Vinh Ngoc Tran, Donghui Xu, Aleksandr Sokolov, Khachik Sargsyan, Aleksey Y. Sheshukov, Jingfeng Wang, Desheng Liu
article en

Abstract

Abstract This study develops a novel general framework to project the permafrost fate with rigorous uncertainty quantification to assess dominant sources. Borehole temperature records from three sites in the Russian western Arctic are used to constrain the uncertainty of a high‐fidelity freeze‐thaw model. Projections from 9 Global Climate Models (GCM) are stochastically downscaled to generate future trajectories of surface ground heat flux. Under the two emission scenarios SSP2‐4.5 and SSP5‐8.5, the projected average thawing depths by 2100 vary from 0.4 to 14.4 m or 2.1 to 17.7 m, and the increase in the top 10 m average temperature from 2015 to 2100 is 1.2–2.7°C or 1.9–3.0°C. The results show that the freeze‐thaw model uncertainty can sometimes dominate over that of GCM outputs, calling for site‐specific information to improve model accuracy. The framework is applicable for understanding permafrost degradation and related uncertainties at larger scales.

Journal of Geophysical Research Earth SurfaceVol. 130(10)
Georgia Institute of Technology (US), Ural Federal University (RU), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (US), Kansas State University (US), Sandia National Laboratories California (US), University of Michigan (US), Earth Cryosphere Institute (RU), Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology (RU), The Ohio State University (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 65%
Climate change and permafrost
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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