Standardized monitoring of permafrost thaw: a user-friendly, multi-parameter protocol


Contact
julia.boike [ at ] awi.de

Abstract

Climate change is destabilizing permafrost landscapes, affecting infrastructure, ecosystems and human livelihoods. The rate of permafrost thaw is controlled by surface and subsurface properties and processes, all of which are potentially linked with each other. Yet, no standardized protocol exists for measuring permafrost thaw and related processes and properties in a linked manner. The permafrost thaw action group of the Terrestrial Multidisciplinary distributed Observatories for the Study of the Arctic Connections (T-MOSAiC) project has developed a protocol, for use by non-specialist scientists and technicians, citizen scientists and indigenous groups, to collect standardized metadata and data on permafrost thaw.The protocol introduced here addresses the need to jointly measure permafrost thaw and the associated surface and subsurface environmental conditions. The parameters measured along transects are: snow depth, thaw depth, vegetation height, soil texture, and water level. The metadata collection includes data on timing of data collection, geographical coordinates, land surface characteristics (vegetation, ground surface, water conditions), as well as photographs. Our hope is that this openly available dataset will also be highly valuable for validation and parameterization of numerical and conceptual models, thus to the broad community represented by the T-MOSAIC project.



Item Type
Article
Authors
Divisions
Primary Division
Programs
Primary Topic
Helmholtz Cross Cutting Activity (2021-2027)
N/A
Research Networks
Publication Status
Published
Eprint ID
54587
DOI 10.1139/AS-2021-0007

Cite as
Boike, J. , Chadburn, S. , Martin, J. , Zwieback, S. , Althuizen, I. H. J. , Anselm, N. , Cai, L. , Coulombe, S. , Lee, H. , Liljedahl, A. K. , Schneebeli, M. , Sjöberg, Y. , Smith, N. , Smith, S. L. , Streletskiy, D. A. , Stuenzi, S. M. , Westermann, S. and Wilcox, E. J. (2021): Standardized monitoring of permafrost thaw: a user-friendly, multi-parameter protocol , Arctic Science . doi: 10.1139/AS-2021-0007


Download
[thumbnail of Standardized_monitoring_of_permafrost_thaw_a_user-friendly_multi-parameter_protocol.pdf]
Preview
PDF
Standardized_monitoring_of_permafrost_thaw_a_user-friendly_multi-parameter_protocol.pdf

Download (3MB) | Preview

Share


Citation

Geographical region

Research Platforms

Campaigns
N/A


Actions
Edit Item Edit Item