Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic

Nitze, Ingmar; Grosse, Guido; Jones, Benjamin M.; Romanovsky, V. E.; Boike, Julia

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-07663-3

Cited by 222 publications

(196 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…First, climate and soil scientists need to find out where the greatest emissions of methane and CO 2 will come from. Although we have a good idea of current numbers of thaw lakes and wetlands 9 , and how many existed in the past 10 , we need to be able to project where new ones will appear. We also need to know how quickly they will drain as the climate warms.…”

Section: Research Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release

Turetsky

Abbott

Jones

et al. 2019

Nature

293

186

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Section: Research Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release

Turetsky

Abbott

Jones

et al. 2019

Nature

293

186

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“…If the changes in the landscape are large enough to be seen with remotely sensed data, the permafrost-related landscapes and their changes can be mapped at a regional scale. For example, Nitze et al [20] used visible/near-infrared Landsat imagery (30 m resolution) from 1999 to 2014 to quantify the expansion of thermokarst lakes and the increased slumping of frozen coastal areas due to melting of permafrost. Such studies are invaluable to document landscape changes in permafrost areas but are not sufficient to explain the changes in the thermal regime of the soil.…”

Section: Remote Sensing and Numerical Modeling Studies Of Permafrostmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward the Detection of Permafrost Using Land-Surface Temperature Mapping

et al. 2020

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Permafrost is degrading under current warming conditions, disrupting infrastructure, releasing carbon from soils, and altering seasonal water availability. Therefore, it is important to quantitatively map the change in the extent and depth of permafrost. We used satellite images of land-surface temperature to recognize and map the zero curtain, i.e., the isothermal period of ground temperature during seasonal freeze and thaw, as a precursor for delineating permafrost boundaries from remotely sensed thermal-infrared data. The phase transition of moisture in the ground allows the zero curtain to occur when near-surface soil moisture thaws or freezes, and also when ice-rich permafrost thaws or freezes. We propose that mapping the zero curtain is a precursor to mapping permafrost at shallow depths. We used ASTER and a MODIS-Aqua daily afternoon land-surface temperature (LST) timeseries to recognize the zero curtain at the 1-km scale as a “proof of concept.” Our regional mapping of the zero curtain over an area around the 7000 m high volcano Ojos del Salado in Chile suggests that the zero curtain can be mapped over arid regions of the world. It also indicates that surface heterogeneity, snow cover, and cloud cover can hinder the effectiveness of our approach. To be of practical use in many areas, it may be helpful to reduce the topographic and compositional heterogeneity in order to increase the LST accuracy. The necessary finer spatial resolution to reduce these problems is provided by ASTER (90 m).

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“…An abrupt halt in increasing global methane concentrations from 2000-2007, for instance, has remained unsatisfactorily explained to the present day (Fletcher and Schaefer, 2019). Such challenges, alongside methodological and technological limitations, have inhibited attempts to confidently scale up local processes such as permafrost thermokarst, lake formation, and microbial methane production to planetary scales (Nitze et al, 2018;Turetsky et al, 2019). 670…”

Section: Strength Of Potential Permafrost Carbon Release Impacts and mentioning

confidence: 99%

ESD Reviews: mechanisms, evidence, and impacts of climate tipping elements

Wang

Hausfather

2020

Preprint

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Abstract. Increasing attention is focusing upon climate tipping elements – large-scale earth systems anticipated to respond through positive feedbacks to anthropogenic climate change by shifting towards new long-term states. In some but not all cases, such changes could produce additional greenhouse gas emissions or radiative forcing that could compound global warming. Developing greater understanding of tipping elements is important for predicting future climate risks. Here we review mechanisms, predictions, impacts, and knowledge gaps associated with ten notable climate tipping elements. We also evaluate which tipping elements are more imminent and whether shifts will likely manifest rapidly or over longer timescales. Some tipping elements are significant to future global climate and will likely affect major ecosystems, climate patterns, and/or carbon cycling within the current century. However, assessments under different emissions scenarios indicate a strong potential to reduce or avoid impacts associated with many tipping elements through climate change mitigation. Most tipping elements do not possess the potential for abrupt future change within years, and some tipping elements are perhaps more accurately termed climate feedbacks. Nevertheless, significant uncertainties remain associated with many tipping elements, highlighting an acute need for further research and modeling to better constrain risks.

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Remote sensing quantifies widespread abundance of permafrost region disturbances across the Arctic and Subarctic

Cited by 222 publications

References 57 publications

Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release

Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release

Toward the Detection of Permafrost Using Land-Surface Temperature Mapping

ESD Reviews: mechanisms, evidence, and impacts of climate tipping elements

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