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TitleBoreal permafrost thaw amplified by fire disturbance and precipitation increases
 
AuthorWilliams, M; Zhang, YORCID logo; Estop-Aragonés, C; Fisher, J P; Xenakis, G; Charman, D J; Hartley, I P; Murton, J B; Phoenix, G K
SourceEnvironmental Research Letters vol. 15, no. 11, 114050, 2020 p. 1-13, https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abbeb8 Open Access logo Open Access
Year2020
Alt SeriesNatural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20200608
PublisherIOP Publishing Ltd.
Documentserial
Lang.English
Mediapaper; on-line; digital
File formatpdf; html
Subjectssurficial geology/geomorphology; soils science; environmental geology; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; organic carbon; permafrost; soil moisture; vegetation; climate effects; precipitation; soils; soil moisture; modelling; thermal regimes; temperature; ground temperatures; terrain sensitivity; Climate change; Boreal ecosystems; Forests; Trees; Biology; Forest fires; permafrost thaw; Hydrology; cumulative effects
Illustrationstables; profiles; time series; plots
ProgramCanada Centre for Remote Sensing Optical methods and applications
Released2020 11 18
AbstractPermafrost soils store huge amounts of organic carbon, which could be released if climate change promotes thaw. Currently, modelling studies predict that thaw in boreal regions is mainly sensitive to warming, rather than changes in precipitation or vegetation cover. We evaluate this conclusion for North American boreal forests using a detailed process-based model parameterised and validated on field measurements. We show that soil thermal regimes for dominant forest types are controlled strongly by soil moisture and thus the balance between evapotranspiration and precipitation. Under dense canopy cover, high evapotranspiration means a 30% increase in precipitation causes less thaw than a 1 C increase in temperature. However, disturbance to vegetation promotes greater thaw through reduced evapotranspiration, which results in wetter, more thermally conductive soils. In such disturbed forests, increases in precipitation rival warming as a direct driver of thaw, with a 30% increase in precipitation at current temperatures causing more thaw than 2 C of warming. We find striking non-linear interactive effects on thaw between rising precipitation and loss of leaf area, which are of concern given projections of greater precipitation and disturbance in boreal forests. Inclusion of robust vegetation-hydrological feedbacks in global models is therefore critical for accurately predicting permafrost dynamics; thaw cannot be considered to be controlled solely by rising temperatures.
GEOSCAN ID327869

 
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