Dynamics of the Thermal State of Active Layer at the Alaska North Slope and Northern Yakutia
Abstract
Dynamics of the active layer is one of the most important indexes, reflecting permafrost response to the modern climate changes. Monitoring of active layer thickness dynamics is the main goal of CALM (Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring) project. But, from different points of view, it is very important to know not only maximal depth of seasonal thawing but also dynamics of thermal field of active layer and duration of its staying in the unfrozen state. Current research was aimed on the analyzing data of temperature measurements have been done during the more then 10 years at the North Slope of Brooks Range (Alaska) and 2 years at the selected sites at the Northern Yakutia (Russia) and its comparison with the 17 to 10 years records of active layer thickness dynamics at the corresponding sites (http://www.udel.edu/Geography/calm/data/north.html). The area of investigation characterized by the typical tundra landscape and different kinds of micro topography. Reported observation sites located at the latitudinal range from 68.5 to 70.3N in Alaska and 70.5 to 71.75N in the Northern Yakutia. Observation have been done using the 1 meter long MRC probe with 11 sensors (every 10 cm) and single Campbell SCI A107 sensors in Alaska and 2-channel HOBO U23 data loggers with TMC-HD thermistors in the Northern Yakutia. Analyses of CALM data show what most observation sites in Alaska (except located near the Brooks Range and at the Arctic Ocean coast) do not subjected to the significant sustainable changes of active layer thickness over the last 10 years. At the same time active layer thickness at the Yakutian sites was increasing. Temperature observations show decreasing of the mean annual temperature at the average depth of active layer bottom at the Alaskan sites. But, because of general trend to increasing of period of thawing it does not lead to the decreasing of active layer thickness. Recent equipment deployment at the Tiksi and Allaikha sites (Northern Yakutia) does not allow to do long-term analyzes of temperature dynamics within the active layer at these sites. Two years long record shows increasing of the temperature at the bottom of the active layer at the both sites. Current research was supported by NSF (ARC-0520578, ARC-0632400 and ARC 0856864), and joint RFBR-CRDF project #16671
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2010
- Bibcode:
- 2010AGUFMGC43A0945K
- Keywords:
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- 0768 CRYOSPHERE / Thermal regime;
- 1621 GLOBAL CHANGE / Cryospheric change