References

The Cryosphere

1994-0424

Copernicus Publications

Göttingen, Germany

10.5194/tc-5-1043-2011

Permafrost degradation risk zone assessment using simulation models

Daanen

R. P.

¹ Ingeman-Nielsen

² Marchenko

S. S.

³ Romanovsky

V. E.

³ Foged

² Stendel

⁴ ⁵ Christensen

J. H.

⁴ ⁵ Hornbech Svendsen

⁶

Institute of Northern Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 306 Tanana Loop, Fairbanks, AK 99775-5860, USA

Dep. Civil Engineering,Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark

Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA

Danish Meteorological Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark

Greenland Climate Research Centre, Nuuk, Greenland

Greenland Survey, Nuuk, Greenland

24 11 2011

5 4 1043 1056

2011

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This article is available from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/5/1043/2011/tc-5-1043-2011.html

The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/5/1043/2011/tc-5-1043-2011.pdf

In this proof-of-concept study we focus on linking large scale climate and permafrost simulations to small scale engineering projects by bridging the gap between climate and permafrost sciences on the one hand and on the other technical recommendation for adaptation of planned infrastructures to climate change in a region generally underlain by permafrost. We present the current and future state of permafrost in Greenland as modelled numerically with the GIPL model driven by HIRHAM climate projections up to 2080. We develop a concept called Permafrost Thaw Potential (PTP), defined as the potential active layer increase due to climate warming and surface alterations. PTP is then used in a simple risk assessment procedure useful for engineering applications. The modelling shows that climate warming will result in continuing wide-spread permafrost warming and degradation in Greenland, in agreement with present observations. We provide examples of application of the risk zone assessment approach for the two towns of Sisimiut and Ilulissat, both classified with high PTP.

References 1

ACIA: Impacts of a Warming Arctic, Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (Highlights), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 110 pp., 2004.

Anisimov, O. A. and Nelson, F. E.: Permafrost zonation and climate change in the northern hemisphere: results from transient general circulation models, Climatic Change, 35, 241–258, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1005315409698">https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1005315409698</a>, 1997.

Anisimov, O. A., Shiklomanov, N. I., and Nelson, F. E.: Variability of seasonal thaw depth in permafrost regions: a stochastic modeling approach, Ecol. Model., 153, 217–227, 2002.

Bennike, O. and Björck, S.: Chronology of the last recession of the Greenland Ice Sheet, J. Quaternary Sci., 17, 211–219, 2002.

Birkholm, J., Brandt, I., and Foged, N.: Deterioration of Permafrost in Thule – Implication for Road Construction in Greenland, International Conference, Arctic Roads, Operating, maintaining and building roads in a climatically challenging environment, Sisimiut, 1, 70–78, 2007.

Christensen, J. H. and Kuhry, P.: High resolution regional climate model validation and permafrost simulation for the East-European Russian Arctic., J. Geophys. Res., 105, 29647–29658, 2000.

Christensen, J. H., Christensen, O. B., Lopez, P., Van Meijgaard, E., and Botzet, M.: The HIRHAM4 Regional Atmospheric Climate Model, Scientific Report DMI, Danish Meteorological Institute, 51 pp., 1996.

Christiansen, H. H. and Humlum, O.: Permafrost, Topografisk Atlas Grønland, edited by: Jakobsen, B. H., Böcher, J., Nielsen, N., Guttesen, R., Humlum, O., and Jensen, E., C. A. Reitzets Forlag, Copenhagen, 32–35, 2000.

Christiansen, H. H., Etzelmuller, B., Isaksen, K., Juliussen, H., Farbrot, H., Humlum, O., Johansson, M., Ingeman-Nielsen, T., Kristensen, L., Hjort, J., Holmlund, P., Sannel, B., Sigsgaard, C. J., Foged, N. N., Bilkra, L., and Pernosky, M. R.: The Thermal State of Permafrost in the Nordic Area during the International Polar Year 2007-2009, Permafrost Periglac., 21, 156–181, 2010.

Daanen, R. P., Romanovsky , V. E., Walker, D. A., and LaDouceur, M.: High Resolution, Surface and Subsurface, Survey of a Non-sorted Circle System, Ninth Internatonal Confererence on Permafrost, 1, 321–326, 2008.

Dethloff, K., Schwager, M., Christensen, J. H., Kiilsholm, S., Rinke, A., Dorn, W., Jung-Rothenhäusler, F., Fischer, H., Kipfstuhl, S., and Miller, H.: Recent Greenland accumulation estimated from regional climate model simulations and ice core analysis, J. Climate, 15, 2821–2832, 2002.

Foged, N.: Engineering Geological Investigations of Quaternary Marine Clay Deposits on West Greenland, Ph.D., The Institute for Applied Geology, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1979 (in Danish).

Foged, N. and Bæk-Madsen, C.: Jakobshavn Airport thermal stability in marine deposits. Second International Symposium on Ground Freezing, Second International Symposium on Ground Freezing, Trondheim, 1980.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, F.: Soil map of the world, volumes I-X, Paris, 1978.

Goodrich, L. E.: The influence of snow cover on the ground thermal regime, Can. Geotech. J., 19, 421–432, 1982.

Ingeman-Nielsen, T.: Geophysical Techniques Applied to Permafrost Investigations in Greenland, Ph.D., BYGDTU R-123, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, 177 pp., 2005.

Ingeman-Nielsen, T., Clausen, H., and Foged, N.: Engineering Geological and Geophysical Investigations for Road Construction in the Municipality of Sisimiut, West Greenland, Proceedings from the International Conference, Arctic Roads, Operating, maintaining and building roads in a climatically challenging environment, 1, 53–61, 2007.

Ingeman-Nielsen, T., Foged, N., Butzbach, R., and Jorgensen, A. S.: Geophysical Investigations of Saline Permafrost at Ilulissat, Greenland, Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, 1, 773–778, 2008.

IPCC: IPCC Summary for Policy Makers: Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Third Assessment Report of the Intergovernment Pannel on Climate Change, edited by: Houghton, J. T., Ding, Y., Griggs, D. J., Noguer, M., van de Linden, P. J., Dai, X., Mashell, K., and Johnson, C. A., Cambridge University Press, Cambrige, 1, 1–20, 2001.

IPCC: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by: Pachauri, R. K. and Reisinger, A., Geneva, Switserland, 1, 104 pp., 2007.

Jungclaus, J. H., Keenlyside, N., Botzet, M., Haak, H., Luo, J.-J., Latif, M., Marotzke, J., Mikolajewicz, U., and Roeckner, E.: Ocean circulation and tropical variability in the coupled model ECHAM5/MPI -OM., J. Climate 19, 3952–3972, 2006.

Lawrence, D. M. and Slater, A. G.: The contribution of snow condition trends to future ground climate, Clim. Dynam., 34, 969–981, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0537-4">https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-009-0537-4</a>, 2008.

Lovell, C.: Temperature effects on phase composition and strength of partially frozen soil Highway, Res. Board Bull., 168, 74–95, 1957.

Lucas-Picher, P.: Very high-resolution regional climate modeling over Greenland with HIRHAM5, in preparation, 2011.

Marchenko, S. S., Romanovsky, V. E., and Tipenko, G. S.: Numerical Modeling of Spatial Permafrost Dynamics in Alaska, in Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, June 29-July 3, Fairbanks, Alaska, 2, 1125–1130, 2008.

Marsland, S. J., Haak, H., Jungclaus, J. H., Latif, M. and Röske, R.: The Max-Planck-Institute global ocean/sea ice model with orthogonal curvilinear coordinates. Ocean Modelling 5, 91-127, 2003.

May, W.: Climatic changes associated with a global "2<i><sup>o</sup></i>C-stabilization" scenario simulated by the ECHAM5/MPI-OM coupled climate model, Clim. Dynam., 31, 283–313, 2008.

Nakićenović, N., Alcamo, J., Davis, G., de Vries, B., Fenhann, J., Gaffin, S., Gregory, K., Grübler, A., Jung, T. Y., Kram, T., La Rovere, E. L., Michaelis, L., Mori, S., Morita, T., Pepper, W., Pitcher, H., Price, L., Riahi, K., Roehrl, A., Rogner, H.-H., Sankovski, A., Schlesinger, M., Shukla, P., Smith, S., Swart, R., van Rooijen, S., Victor, N., and Dadi, Z.: IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios., Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA., 599, 2000.

Nelson, F. E. and Outcalt, S.: A computational method for prediction and regionalisation of permafrost, Arctic Alpine Res, 19, 279–288, 1987.

Nelson, F. E., Anisimov, O. A., and Shiklomanov, N. I.: Subsidence risk from thawing permafrost, Nature, 410, 889–890, 2001.

Nicolsky, D. J., Romanovsky, V. E., Alexeev, V. A., and Lawrence, D. M.: Improved modeling of permafrost dynamics in a GCM land-surface scheme, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L08501, https://doi.org/0.1029/2007gl029525, 2007.

Nicolsky, D. J., Romanovsky, V. E., and Panteleev, G. G.: Estimation of soil thermal properties using in-situ temperature measurements in the active layer and permafrost, Cold Reg. Sci. Technol., 55, 120–129, 2009.

Olesen, O. B.: Shallow Borehole Temperatures, Ilulissat, Greenland, Greenlandic Geological Survey (GEUS), Distributed by National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology, 2003.

Olesen, O. B., Foged, N., van Tatenhove, F. G. M., and Christiansen, H. H.: Active-Layer and Permafrost Temperatures, Sisimiut (Holsteinsborg), Greenland, Greenlandic Geological Survey, GEUS, Distributed by National Snow and Ice Data Center/World Data Center for Glaciology digital media, 2003.

Rasch, M.: Holocene Relative Sea Level Changes in Disko Bugt, West Greenland, J. Coast. Res., 16, 306–315, 2000.

Rinke, A., Dethloff, K., Cassano, J., Christensen, J. H., Curry, J. A., Du, P., Girard, E., Haugen, J. E., Jacob, D., Jones, C. J., Køltzow, M., Laprise, R., Lynch, A. H., Pfeifer, S., Serreze, M. C., Shaw, M. J., Tjernström, M., Wyser, K., and Zagar, M.: Evaluation of an Ensemble of Arctic Regional Climate Models: Spatiotemporal fields during the SHEBA year, Clim. Dyn., 26, 459–472, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-005-0095-3">http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00382-005-0095-3</a>, 2006.

Riseborough, D. W., Shiklomanov, N., Etzelmüller, B., Gruber, S., and Marchenko, S.: Recent advances in permafrost modelling, Permafrost Periglac., 19, 137–156, 2008.

Roberts, D. H., Long, A. J., Schnabel, C., Davies, B. J., Xu, S., Simpson, M. J. R., and Huybrechts, P.: Ice sheet extent and early deglacial history of the southwestern sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet., Quaternary Sci. Rev., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.07.002">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.07.002</a>, 2009.

Roeckner, E., Brokopf, R., Esch, M., Giorgetta, M., Hagemann, S., Kornblueh, L., Manzini, E., Schlese, U., and Schulzweida, U.: Sensitivity of simulated climate to horizontal and vertical resolution in the ECHAM5 atmosphere model, J. Climate, 19, 3771–3791, 2006.

Romanovsky, V. E. and Osterkamp, T. E.: Interannual variations of the thermal regime of the active layer and near-surface permafrost in northern Alaska, Permafrost Periglac., 6, 313–335, 1995.

Romanovsky , V. E., Burgess, M., Smith, S., Yoshikawa, K., and Brown, J.: Permafrost temperature records: indicators of climate change, EOS, AGU Transactions, 83, 589–594, 2002.

Romanovsky, V. E., Smith, S. L., and Christiansen, H. H.: Permafrost Thermal State in the Polar Northern Hemisphere during the International Polar Year 2007–2009: a Synthesis, Permafrost Periglac., 21, 106–116, https://doi.org/10.1002/Ppp.689, 2010.

Sazonova, T. and Romanovsky , V. E.: A model for regional scale estimation of temporal and spatial variability of active layer thickness and mean annual ground temperatures, Permafrost Periglac., 14, 125–139, 2003.

Sergeev, D. O., Tipenko, G. S., and Romanovsky , V. E.: Mountain permafrost thickness evolution under influence of long-term climate fluctuations (results of numerical simulations), 8th International Conference on Permafrost, Zurich, 1017–1021, 2003.

Stendel, M. and Christensen, J. H.: Impact of global warming on permafrost conditions in a coupled GCM, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29, 1632, 4 pp., <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001GL014345">https://doi.org/10.1029/2001GL014345</a>, 2002.

Stendel, M., Romanovsky, V. E., Christensen, J. H., and Sazonova, T.: Using dynamical downscaling to close the gap between global change scenarios and local permafrost dynamics, Global Planet. Change, 56, 203–214, 2007.

Stendel, M., Christensen, J., and Petersen, D.: Arctic Climate and Climate Change with a Focus on Greenland, in: High-Arctic Ecosystem Dynamics in a Changing Climate - Ten Years of Monitoring and Research at Zackenberg Research Station, Northeast Greenland, edited by: Meltofte, H. et al., Advances in Ecological Research, 40, 13–43, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2504(07)00002-5">https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2504(07)00002-5</a>, 2008a.

Stendel, M., Christensen, J. H., Adalgeirsdottir, G., Daanen, R. P., Marchenko, S. S., and Romanovksy, V. E.: The fate of Greenland's permafrost; results from high-resolution transient climate simulations, Ninth International Conference on Permafrost, Fairbanks, 1705–1709, 2008b.

Tipenko, G. S.: Simulation of Soil Freezing and Thawing: Direct and Inverse Problems, EOS Trans. Fall meeting, AGU, San Fransisco, F551, 2001.

Walsh, J. E., Chapman, W. L., Romanovksy, V. E., Christensen, J. H., and Stendel, M.: Global climate model performance over Alaska and Greenland, J. Climate, 21, 6156–6174, https://doi.org/10.1175/2008JCLI2163.1, 2008.

Weidick, A.: Glaciation and the Quaternary of Greenland, Geology of Greenland, edited by: Escher, A. and Watt, W. S., Copenhagen: Geological Survey of Greenland, 1976.

Yoshikawa, K. and Hinzman, L. D.: Shrinking thermokarst ponds and groundwater dynamics in discontinuous permafrost near Council, Alaska, Permafrost Periglac., 14, 151–160, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ppp.451">https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp.451</a>, 2003.

Zhang, T. J.: Influence of the seasonal snow cover on the ground thermal regime: an overview, Rev. Geophys., 43, RG4002, https://doi.org/10.1029/2004RG000157, 2005.