Effects of bryophyte and lichen cover on permafrost soil temperature at large scale

Porada, Philipp; Ekici, Altug; Beer, Christian

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2291-2016

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2291-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Special issue:

Changing Permafrost in the Arctic and its Global Effects in...

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-10-2291-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 10, issue 5

Research article

|

30 Sep 2016

Research article |

| 30 Sep 2016

Effects of bryophyte and lichen cover on permafrost soil temperature at large scale

Philipp Porada, Altug Ekici, and Christian Beer

Data sets

Land surface model JSBACH Max Planck Institute for Meteorology http://www.mpimet.mpg.de/en/science/models/license/

The climatic fields used in this study as forcing data for the JSBACH model Max Planck Institute for Meteorology https://www.bgc-jena.mpg.de/geodb/projects/Home.php

Video supplement

Maps of subsoil temperature and active layer depth of Yakutian ASSR (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union) C. Beer, A. N. Fedorov, and Y. Torgovkin https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.808240

Short summary

Bryophyte and lichen cover on the forest floor at high latitudes insulates the ground and thus decreases soil temperature. This can protect permafrost soil, stabilising it against global warming. To quantify the insulating effect, we integrate a novel, process-based model of bryophyte and lichen growth into the global land surface model JSBACH. We find an average cooling effect of the bryophyte and lichen cover of 2.7 K, which implies a significant impact on soil temperature at high latitudes.