Climate-driven expansion of northern agriculture must consider permafrost

Jones, Melissa K. Ward; Schwoerer, Tobias; Gannon, Glenna; Jones, Benjamin M.; Kanevskiy, Mikhail; Sutton, Iris; Pierre, Brad St.; Pierre, Christine St.; Russell, Jill; Russell, David E.

doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01436-z

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…We also stress that our maps represent agricultural conversion potential conditional on the predictor variables that we included, implying that our maps do not capture the possible influences of other potentially relevant predictors. For example, our conversion potential models and maps do not account for permafrost, which may pose significant challenges to possible agricultural expansion at higher latitudes in response to climate change [46].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Maps of Agricultural Expansion Potential at a 300 m Resolution

Čengić

Steinmann

Defourny

et al. 2023

Land

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The global expansion of agricultural land is a leading driver of climate change and biodiversity loss. However, the spatial resolution of current global land change models is relatively coarse, which limits environmental impact assessments. To address this issue, we developed global maps representing the potential for conversion into agricultural land at a resolution of 10 arc-seconds (approximately 300 m at the equator). We created the maps using artificial neural network (ANN) models relating locations of recent past conversions (2007–2020) into one of three cropland categories (cropland only, mosaics with >50% crops, and mosaics with <50% crops) to various predictor variables reflecting topography, climate, soil, and accessibility. Cross-validation of the models indicated good performance with area under the curve (AUC) values of 0.88–0.93. Hindcasting of the models from 1992 to 2006 revealed a similar high performance (AUC of 0.83–0.91), indicating that our maps provide representative estimates of current agricultural conversion potential provided that the drivers underlying agricultural expansion patterns remain the same. Our maps can be used to downscale projections of global land change models to more fine-grained patterns of future agricultural expansion, which is an asset for global environmental assessments.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Maps of Agricultural Expansion Potential at a 300 m Resolution

Čengić

Steinmann

Defourny

et al. 2023

Land

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“…2 ). Thus, permafrost mitigation costs are considered a lower bound estimate, not accounting for changes in living conditions associated with permafrost damage to private homes and not accounting for non-respondents who abandoned their properties due to permafrost thaw (Ward Jones et al 2022 ). In addition, the results are an underestimate and are solely associated with homeowners amounting to 63% of the Anchorage and 59% of the Fairbanks population (U.S. Census 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As the impacts of wildfire, surface ice, and permafrost thaw are predicted to increase in northern latitudes, and human populations want to expand into hazard prone areas (Walsh et al 2020 ; Ward Jones et al 2022 ), climate risk mitigation and adaptation are essential components for risk management and urban planning (Dhar and Khirfan 2017 ). Government-funded mitigation programs that work closely with private homeowners, such as the Firewise program, are a first line of defense against increasing hazards, raising awareness, and incentivizing private action (McCaffrey 2015 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing multi-hazard climate risk and financial and health impacts on northern homeowners

Schwoerer,

Schmidt,

Berman

et al. 2023

Ambio

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Currently, more than half of the world’s human population lives in urban areas, which are increasingly affected by climate hazards. Little is known about how multi-hazard environments affect people, especially those living in urban areas in northern latitudes. This study surveyed homeowners in Anchorage and Fairbanks, USA, Alaska’s largest urban centers, to measure individual risk perceptions, mitigation response, and damages related to wildfire, surface ice hazards, and permafrost thaw. Up to one third of residents reported being affected by all three hazards, with surface ice hazards being the most widely distributed, related to an estimated $25 million in annual damages. Behavioral risk response, policy recommendations for rapidly changing urban environments, and the challenges to local governments in mitigation efforts are discussed.

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“…Interactions between permafrost, large herbivores, and soil C are an interesting area of research, however, the introduction of large herbivores is unlikely to stop the increasing carbon emissions from permafrost thaw at a circumpolar scale (Zimov et al., 2009). Increasing human presence is also impacting Arctic lands (Friedrich et al., 2022), but little is understood about effects on emissions such as increased fugitive CH 4 emissions (e.g., leaky infrastructure; Klotz et al., 2023), land use change emissions (Strack et al., 2019), or effects of the interactions between land use change and permafrost thaw (Ward Jones et al., 2022). Overall, an improved understanding requires new cross‐disciplinary approaches to understand the magnitude of these processes across the entire permafrost domain.…”

Section: Terrestrial Carbon Fluxes In the Permafrost Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Permafrost Carbon: Progress on Understanding Stocks and Fluxes Across Northern Terrestrial Ecosystems

Treat,

Virkkala,

Burke

et al. 2024

JGR Biogeosciences

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Significant progress in permafrost carbon science made over the past decades include the identification of vast permafrost carbon stocks, the development of new pan‐Arctic permafrost maps, an increase in terrestrial measurement sites for CO2 and methane fluxes, and important factors affecting carbon cycling, including vegetation changes, periods of soil freezing and thawing, wildfire, and other disturbance events. Process‐based modeling studies now include key elements of permafrost carbon cycling and advances in statistical modeling and inverse modeling enhance understanding of permafrost region C budgets. By combining existing data syntheses and model outputs, the permafrost region is likely a wetland methane source and small terrestrial ecosystem CO2 sink with lower net CO2 uptake toward higher latitudes, excluding wildfire emissions. For 2002–2014, the strongest CO2 sink was located in western Canada (median: −52 g C m−2 y−1) and smallest sinks in Alaska, Canadian tundra, and Siberian tundra (medians: −5 to −9 g C m−2 y−1). Eurasian regions had the largest median wetland methane fluxes (16–18 g CH4 m−2 y−1). Quantifying the regional scale carbon balance remains challenging because of high spatial and temporal variability and relatively low density of observations. More accurate permafrost region carbon fluxes require: (a) the development of better maps characterizing wetlands and dynamics of vegetation and disturbances, including abrupt permafrost thaw; (b) the establishment of new year‐round CO2 and methane flux sites in underrepresented areas; and (c) improved models that better represent important permafrost carbon cycle dynamics, including non‐growing season emissions and disturbance effects.

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Climate-driven expansion of northern agriculture must consider permafrost

Cited by 9 publications

References 16 publications

Global Maps of Agricultural Expansion Potential at a 300 m Resolution

Global Maps of Agricultural Expansion Potential at a 300 m Resolution

Increasing multi-hazard climate risk and financial and health impacts on northern homeowners

Permafrost Carbon: Progress on Understanding Stocks and Fluxes Across Northern Terrestrial Ecosystems

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