​​​​​Establishing a Distributed Permafrost Observatory in Western Alaska

​Permafrost thaw can be a major driver of landscape change.  Regions in Western Alaska are highly vulnerable to such thawing due to the high ice content of the soils and the lack of thermal monitoring in this region has limited our ability to understand current thermal state and establish thawing rates. This study established a permafrost monitoring network in this region, providing a baseline of permafrost thermal regimes for assessing future change at a total of 26 automated monitoring stations.  Stations have collected year-round temperature data from the active layer and the permafrost starting from the summer of 2011.  The strong correspondence between spatial variability in permafrost thermal regime and an existing ecotype map allowed for the development of a map of 'permafrost thermal classes' for the broader study region.  

​Project ID: WA2011_01 ​

Lead Investigator: Vladimir Romanovsky, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Geophysical Institute

​Collaborators: Lee Anne Ayers & Anne Orlando, USFWS; Michael Brubaker, ANTHC; Kenji Yoshikawa, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Benjamin Crosby, Idaho State University; Joel Rowland, Los Alamos National Laboratory; John Chase, Northwest Arctic Borough; David Swanson, NPS; Tim Hammond, BLM

Project Duration: 2011 - 2014

Further, the annual temperature data was used to calibrate models of soil thermal regimes as a function of climate, providing estimates of both historic and future permafrost thermal regimes at key sites. All modeled sites showed a sharp warming trend from the mid-1970s through present, with some sites expected to no longer have permafrost at 1 meter depth as early as 2040. The map and rate estimates provide land and resource managers, as well as other stakeholders, a much fuller picture of expected landscape change under future climate scenarios.​

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MAGT 1.0 map.jpg
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Webinar: Final Results (December 4, 2014).ppt
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Webinar: Interim Results (November 20, 2013).ppt
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Final Report.pdf
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Related Resources

Project page at the UAF Geophysical Institute's Permafrost Lab