Impacts of climate-induced permafrost degradation on vegetation: A review

Jin, Xiaoying; Jin, Huijun; Iwahana, Go; Marchenko, S. S.; Li, Xiaoying; Liang, Sihai

doi:10.1016/j.accre.2020.07.002

Cited by 176 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 180 publications

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“…Disturbance can also alter hydrology effects, primarily by reducing the transpiration rate on sites (increasing soil wetness), and also by potentially changing tree species composition to species with different drought and waterlogging tolerance. Disturbance (and warming climate) allowed larger-statured species to colonize and quickly become effective transpirers, altering hydrology and potentially displacing waterlogging-tolerant species, consistent with conclusions of Jin et al (2020). In wetlands under climate change, disturbance was able to prevent development of effective transpirer cohorts (e.g., P. sibirica), maintaining the dominance of wetland species.…”

Section: Insights From Case Studiessupporting

confidence: 75%

“…A warming climate has the potential to alter permafrost hydrology such that the vegetation will change. Successional trajectories may move toward either a wetter or drier ecosystem in the near term (depending on specific conditions), but will ultimately become drier if the permafrost thaws completely where soils have good drainage (Jin et al, 2020). Predicting such successional trajectories is critical for forecasting shifts of species and biome boundaries and understanding impacts on carbon budgets.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

et al. 2020

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Changes in CO2 concentration and climate are likely to alter disturbance regimes and competitive outcomes among tree species, which ultimately can result in shifts of species and biome boundaries. Such changes are already evident in high latitude forests, where waterlogged soils produced by topography, surficial geology, and permafrost are an important driver of forest dynamics. Predicting such effects under the novel conditions of the future requires models with direct and mechanistic links of abiotic drivers to growth and competition. We enhanced such a forest landscape model (PnET-Succession in LANDIS-II) to allow simulation of waterlogged soils and their effects on tree growth and competition. We formally tested how these modifications alter water balance on wetland and permafrost sites, and their effect on tree growth and competition. We applied the model to evaluate its promise for mechanistically simulating species range expansion and contraction under climate change across a latitudinal gradient in Siberian Russia. We found that higher emissions scenarios permitted range expansions that were quicker and allowed a greater diversity of invading species, especially at the highest latitudes, and that disturbance hastened range shifts by overcoming the natural inertia of established ecological communities. The primary driver of range advances to the north was altered hydrology related to thawing permafrost, followed by temperature effects on growth. Range contractions from the south (extirpations) were slower and less tied to emissions or latitude, and were driven by inability to compete with invaders, or disturbance. An important non-intuitive result was that some extant species were killed off by extreme cold events projected under climate change as greater weather extremes occurred over the next 30 years, and this had important effects on subsequent successional trajectories. The mechanistic linkages between climate and soil water dynamics in this forest landscape model produced tight links between climate inputs, physiology of vegetation, and soils at a monthly time step. The updated modeling system can produce high quality projections of climate impacts on forest species range shifts by accounting for the interacting effects of CO2 concentration, climate (including longer growing seasons), seed dispersal, disturbance, and soil hydrologic properties.

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Section: Insights From Case Studiessupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

et al. 2020

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“…Furthermore, groundwater systems have more far‐reaching impacts on ecohydrological processes. Thawing permafrost under climatic warming can increase infiltration to the water table and facilitate vegetation growth (Young et al., 2020), but also can lead to vegetation degradation due to declining water tables (Jin et al., 2020). Previous studies on the role of Himalayans groundwater were based on hydrological separation or water balance models (Andermann et al., 2012; Schmidt et al., 2020), and the spatial groundwater flow patterns, the magnitude and seasonal distribution of groundwater recharge and discharge to rivers in Himalayan region and the factors that control these distributions are poorly understood.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Role of Groundwater in Sustaining Northern Himalayan Rivers

Yao

Chen

Andrews

et al. 2021

Geophysical Research Letters

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Mountains and highlands serve as "water towers" as they provide downstream alluvial plains and lowlands with freshwater (Viviroli & Weingartner, 2008). The Himalayas are the source of water for all of the major rivers in southeast Asia and play a significant role in supplying freshwater for the vast lowland areas of China, India, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan (Bookhagen, 2012;Fan et al., 2019). These Himalayan "water towers" are closely related to human welfare and ecosystem health because of their role in generating runoff, groundwater recharge, providing flow to the lowlands through river networks and aquifers, transporting nutrients from porous media to the rivers which affects the biological cycle (Connolly et al., 2020), and sustaining both natural terrestrial and aquatic habitats (i.e., forests and lakes) and artificial infrastructure

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“…Due to its unique thermal and hydraulic characters, frozen soil plays an important role in the energy and water exchange between the land surface and the atmosphere system [2]. In response to global warming, the degradation of frozen soil has exhibited significant effects on regional hydrological processes, biochemical cycles and land ecosystems [2][3][4]. Therefore, mapping the spatial distribution of frozen soil and monitoring the changes in the soil freezing/thawing state are quite important for water resource management and ecosystem protection in cold regions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing Changes in Frozen Soil in the Source Region of the Yellow River Using the MODIS Land Surface Temperature Products

et al. 2021

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The degradation of the frozen soil in the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP) caused by climate warming has attracted extensive worldwide attention due to its significant effects on the ecosystem and hydrological processes. In this study, we propose an effective approach to estimate the spatial distribution and changes in the frozen soil using the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) land surface temperature products as inputs. A comparison with in-situ observations suggests that this method can accurately estimate the mean daily land surface temperature, the spatial distribution of the permafrost, and the maximum thickness of the seasonally-frozen ground in the source region of the Yellow River, located in the northeastern area of the QTP. The results of The Temperature at the Top of the Permafrost model indicates that the area of permafrost in the source region of the Yellow River decreased by 4.82% in the period from 2003 to 2019, with an increase in the areal mean air temperature of 0.35 °C/10 years. A high spatial heterogeneity in the frozen soil changes was revealed. The basin-averaged active layer thickness of the permafrost increased at a rate of 5.46 cm/10 years, and the basin-averaged maximum thickness of the seasonally-frozen ground decreased at a rate of 3.66 cm/10 years. The uncertainties in calculating the mean daily land surface temperature and the soil’s thermal conductivity were likely to influence the accuracy of the estimation of the spatial distribution of the permafrost and the maximum thickness of the seasonally-frozen ground, which highlight the importance of the better integration of field observations and multi-source remote sensing data in order to improve the modelling of frozen soil in the future. Overall, the approach proposed in this study may contribute to the improvement of the application of the MODIS land surface temperature data in the study of frozen soil changes in large catchments with limited in-situ observations in the QTP.

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Impacts of climate-induced permafrost degradation on vegetation: A review

Cited by 176 publications

References 180 publications

Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

Role of Groundwater in Sustaining Northern Himalayan Rivers

Analyzing Changes in Frozen Soil in the Source Region of the Yellow River Using the MODIS Land Surface Temperature Products

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