Continuing Support of Sustainable Observations of Thermal State of Permafrost in North America and Russia: The U.S. Contribution to the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost

University Of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Fairbanks AK

Investigators

Abstract

Permafrost, defined as soil, rock or sediment that remains below 0 degrees Celsius for more than two consecutive years, varies in coverage and ice content. When permafrost warms and thaws, any buried ground ice present melts. This can lead to ground surface caving, changes in terrain, and damage to infrastructure. Permafrost thaw can also change dynamics of carbon cycling and affect near-surface hydrology causing the ground surface to become wetter or drier. To understand how fast and where permafrost is warming, this project supports the ongoing collection of high-quality, long-term data on ground temperature at more than 250 permafrost monitoring sites in Alaska, Siberia, and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. To refine detection of ground warming, the investigators will supplement some monitoring sites with sensors to directly measure the heat flux between the near-surface permafrost and ground surface. To understand the relationship between permafrost warming and ground surface subsidence, the investigators will also monitor and map geomorphological changes along a transect that runs south to north across sub-Arctic and Arctic Alaska. This proposal strengthens the International Network of Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) Observatories and provides the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) and the NSF Arctic Data Center with a consistent, representative, and high quality standardized long-term data series of selected permafrost parameters. This project will continue to maintain and acquire data from the existing Alaskan and Northwest Canadian network of permafrost observatories for the period 2019 to 2023; continue to develop a sustainable network of permafrost observatories in the Russian Arctic and participate in the acquisition of a comparable set of standardized data from regional observatories; participate in the implementation of the international TSP project as the US contribution to the GTN-P; continue to develop and update a joint Alaska-Russian permafrost temperature database and provide data to other data systems; and monitor the geomorphological impact of permafrost degradation at five surface observation sites. This project will also involve a number of undergraduate students, train one PhD student, mentor a postdoctoral scholar, and support K-12 outreach activities in both Alaska and Russia. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.