Simulation of permafrost distributions in the Qilian Mountains using a multi-criteria approach

•Permafrost distributions on the Qilian Mountains are simulated.•A multi-criteria approach is used to simulate permafrost over the past 30 years.•Simulated distribution of permafrost presents an overall degraded tendency.•About 17.11% of simulated area has decreased over the past 30 years.•Upon climate tendency, Qilian permafrost will continue to degrade in next 15 years.

Permafrost is a physical geographic phenomenon that is sensitive to temperature, and climate change has a great effect on alpine permafrost distributions. Based on topographic and meteorological factors and a benchmark map of alpine permafrost distribution, this paper puts forward a GIS-based empirical permafrost model. This model uses a multi-criteria approach to derive the permafrost distribution in 5-year intervals in the Qilian Mountains over the past 30 years. The simulation results show that: (1) the model can use multiple factors to simulate alpine permafrost, which can reduce dependence on field survey data. (2) The simulated distribution of alpine permafrost presents an overall degraded tendency, about 17.11% of which has decreased over the past 30 years. (3) Based on the climate change tendency, simulated Qilian permafrost will continue to degrade about 0.51 × 104 km2 over the next 15 years.