Special Section: Progress in Modeling and Characterization of Frozen Soil Processes

Toride, Nobuo; Watanabe, Kunio

doi:10.2136/vzj2013.01.0001

Cited by 11 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(31 reference statements)

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“…Early research on frozen soil focusing on the mechanics of frost heave and ice‐lens formation (e.g., Taber, 1929) was followed by the development of theories and models using the principles of thermodynamics and transport processes (see Miller, 1980; Williams and Smith, 1989). Despite the widespread occurrence of soil freeze–thaw and its influence on the vadose zone, however, surprisingly few studies on frozen soil have been published in soil science journals, including the Vadose Zone Journal (Toride et al, 2013), in contrast to a large number of publications in journals specializing in permafrost and cold‐region research. In recent years, the vadose zone has been seen as the core element of the Critical Zone, where complex interactions occur among soils, water, the atmosphere, and living matter.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Cold Vadose Zone: Hydrological and Ecological Significance of Frozen‐Soil Processes

Hayashi

2013

Vadose Zone Journal

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Approximately 50% of soils in the Northern Hemisphere experience seasonal freezing and thawing, which influences physical, chemical, and biological processes in the vadose zone. Soil freeze–thaw drives mechanical processes, including frost heave and soil aggregate formation and breakdown, and controls snowmelt infiltration and runoff. These hydrologic processes determine the soil moisture conditions, which affect plant mortality and growth, soil microbial activities, and nutrient (e.g., C and N) cycles. Nutrients leached from the thawed soil, often with rapid infiltration of snowmelt water, may affect the quality of the groundwater and surface water, in combination with enhanced erosion and sediment load due to freeze–thaw. Nutrients released as greenhouse gases may contribute to climate feedback. With recent climate warming and changes in the extent and depth of frozen soil and permafrost, it is important to understand frozen‐soil processes and their interaction with the environment. The objective of this review is to highlight important aspects of soil freeze–thaw and related processes and to point out research challenges and opportunities in the cold vadose zone.

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The Cold Vadose Zone: Hydrological and Ecological Significance of Frozen‐Soil Processes

Hayashi

2013

Vadose Zone Journal

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“…Previous papers in Vadose Zone Journal , including those in a 2013 special section (see Toride et al, 2013 and papers highlighted therein), have focused on the generalizations of unsaturated flow theory and advances in characterization and modeling of frozen soil processes. Hayashi (2013) provides an overview of hydrologic, ecologic, and mechanical processes occurring in seasonally frozen soil and offers perspective on pressing science needs in cold vadose zone research.…”

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Hydrologic Impacts of Thawing Permafrost—A Review

Walvoord¹,

Kurylyk

2016

Vadose Zone Journal

680

646

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Where present, permafrost exerts a primary control on water fluxes, flowpaths, and distribution. Climate warming and related drivers of soil thermal change are expected to modify the distribution of permafrost, leading to changing hydrologic conditions, including alterations in soil moisture, connectivity of inland waters, streamflow seasonality, and the partitioning of water stored above and below ground. The field of permafrost hydrology is undergoing rapid advancement with respect to multiscale observations, subsurface characterization, modeling, and integration with other disciplines. However, gaining predictive capability of the many interrelated consequences of climate change is a persistent challenge due to several factors. Observations of hydrologic change have been causally linked to permafrost thaw, but applications of process-based models needed to support and enhance the transferability of empirical linkages have often been restricted to generalized representations. Limitations stem from inadequate baseline permafrost and unfrozen hydrogeologic characterization, lack of historical data, and simplifications in structure and process representation needed to counter the high computational demands of cryohydrogeologic simulations. Further, due in part to the large degree of subsurface heterogeneity of permafrost landscapes and the nonuniformity in thaw patterns and rates, associations between various modes of permafrost thaw and hydrologic change are not readily scalable; even trajectories of change can differ. This review highlights promising advances in characterization and modeling of permafrost regions and presents ongoing research challenges toward projecting hydrologic and ecologic consequences of permafrost thaw at time and spatial scales that are useful to managers and researchers.Abbreviations: AEM, airborne electromagnetic; ALT, active layer thickness; CALM, Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring; EMI, electromagnetic induction; ERT, electrical resistivity tomography; GPR, ground-penetrating radar; InSAR, Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar; NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance; SR, seismic refraction; TDEM, timedomain electromagnetics.Permafrost hydrology is a rapidly progressing research field, and a number of new discoveries and questions have emerged in recent years. Research interest in cold regions has been spurred in part by surface temperature warming rates in high latitudes (McBean et al., 2005) and high altitudes (Pepin et al., 2015) that are greater than the global average. This warming has produced changes to the cryosphere, including permafrost (ground that is £0°C year round), that impact hydrologic processes and conditions (ACIA, 2005;Hinzman et al., 2013). Despite increased attention, there are still critical limitations in hydrologic data coverage, subsurface characterization, process-level understanding, and integrated modeling approaches. Due to its low hydraulic conductivity (K), permafrost strongly affects the movement, storage, and exchange of surface and subsurface water. In...

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“…And while LSMs will never be able to capture the full multitude of effects connected to surface and subsurface heterogeneity, the level of realism in the representation of physical and biogeochemical permafrost-related processes and effects has increased substantially over the past years (McGuire et al, 2016;Chadburn et al, 2017;Fisher and Koven, 2020;Blyth et al, 2021). Amongst others, many models now account for the inhibition of vertical soil moisture fluxes, which often leads to the formation of a saturated zone above the permafrost table, or the thermal insulation of the soil due to organic matter (Painter et al, 2012;Swenson et al, 2012;Toride et al, 2013;Walvoord and Kurylyk, 2016).…”

Section: Representation Of Soil Hydrology In Permafrost Regions May E...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Representation of soil hydrology in permafrost regions may explain large part of inter-model spread in simulated Arctic and subarctic climate

Vrese

Georgievski

Rouco

et al. 2022

Preprint

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The current generation of Earth system models exhibits large inter-model differences in the simulated climate of the Arctic and subarctic zone, with differences in model structure and parametrizations being one of the main sources of uncertainty. One particularly challenging aspect in modelling is the representation of terrestrial processes in permafrost-affected regions, which are often governed by spatial heterogeneity far below the resolution of the models' land surface components. Here, we use the MPI Earth System model to investigate how different plausible assumptions for the representation of the permafrost hydrology modulate the land-atmosphere interactions and how the resulting feedbacks affect not only the regional and global climate, but also our ability to predict whether the high latitudes will become wetter or drier in a warmer future. Focusing on two idealized setups that induce comparatively "wet" or "dry" conditions in regions that are presently affected by permafrost, we find that the parameter settings determine the direction of the 21stcentury trend in the simulated soil water content and result in substantial differences in the land-atmosphere exchange of energy and moisture. The latter leads to differences in the simulated cloud cover and thus in the planetary energy uptake. The respective effects are so pronounced that uncertainties in the representation of the Arctic hydrological cycle can help to explain a large fraction of the inter-model spread in regional surface temperatures and precipitation. Furthermore, they affect a range of components of the Earth system as far to the south as the tropics. With both setups being similarly plausible, our findings highlight the need for more observational constraints on the permafrost hydrology to reduce the inter-model spread in Arctic climate projections.

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Special Section: Progress in Modeling and Characterization of Frozen Soil Processes

Cited by 11 publications

References 31 publications

The Cold Vadose Zone: Hydrological and Ecological Significance of Frozen‐Soil Processes

The Cold Vadose Zone: Hydrological and Ecological Significance of Frozen‐Soil Processes

Hydrologic Impacts of Thawing Permafrost—A Review

Representation of soil hydrology in permafrost regions may explain large part of inter-model spread in simulated Arctic and subarctic climate

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