Modelling present and future permafrost thermal regimes in Northeast Greenland

Permafrost is vulnerable to rapid changes in climate, and increasing air temperatures have recently resulted in the increase of active layer thickness, thaw subsidence and warming of the underlying permafrost. Such changes have important implications for geotechnical properties and the stability of infrastructures in permafrost-affected areas. Many studies focus on the sensitivity of the active layer with respect to changes in climate conditions, but few assess the sensitivity of active layer thermal properties in relation to sediment types and soil water contents, and the importance of direct measurements of thermal property sensitivity with respect to soil water content compared to default physical relationships incorporated in process-based models. In this study, we use on-site data and samples to measure thermal conductivity (TC) at different gravimetric water/ice contents (GWC) in frozen and thawed permafrost. The samples, obtained from an emerged delta and an alluvial fan in the Zackenberg Valley, NE Greenland, are characterized by contrasting grain-size distribution and mineralogy. We calibrated a coupled heat and water transfer model, the “CoupModel”, to simulate permafrost temperatures at two sites on the delta. The sites have different snow depth characteristics and were simulated using both observed and default values of TC, and observed liquid soil water content. The results show that depth- and sediment type-specific TC values are crucial for a successful model simulation, and that transfer function derived values of TC are useful for modeling permafrost temperatures as long as site- and depth-specific grain size distribution and ice contents are defined. A thicker snow pack increased ground surface temperatures and resulted in a 1 °C higher annual mean ground temperature at the depth of zero annual amplitude. Permafrost temperatures increased by 1.5 °C and 3.5 °C at the depth of 18 m with 3 °C and 6 °C ground surface warming, but warming combined with increased soil water content had no important additional effect on the thermal regime when ground surface temperatures were prescribed as upper boundary conditions. Precipitation in the form of snow, however, may have a larger effect on ground temperatures directly, due to the surface temperature changes, than will the subsequent changes in thermal properties following increase in soil water content.