### Access
Photos of ~50 permaforst boreholes and associated cores can be accessed and downloaded from the 'AR\_Fire\_Core_Photos' directory via: [https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A2251FM9P/](https://arcticdata.io/data/10.18739/A2251FM9P/)
### Overview
The Anaktuvuk River tundra fire burned more than 1,000 square kilometers of permafrost-affected arctic tundra in northern Alaska in 2007. The fire is the largest historical recorded tundra fire on the North Slope of Alaska. Fifty percent of the burn area is underlain by Yedoma permafrost that is characterized by extremely high ground-ice content of organic-rich, silty buried soils and the occurrence of large, syngenetic polygonal ice wedges. Given the high ground-ice content of this terrain, Yedoma is thought to be among the most vulnerable to fire-induced thermokarst in the Arctic. With this dataset, we update observations on near-surface permafrost in the Anaktuvuk River tundra fire burn area from 2009 to 2023 using repeat airborne LiDAR-derived elevation data, ground temperature measurements, and cryostratigraphic studies.
We have provided all of the data that has gone into an analysis and resulting paper that has been submitted for peer review at the journal Scientific Reports. The datasets include:
- 1 m spatial resolution airborne LiDAR-derived digital terrain models from the summers of 2009, 2014, and 2021.
- The area in which thaw subsidence was detected in the multi-temporal LiDAR data using the Geomorphic Change Detection software.
- A terrain unit map developed for the 50 square kilometer study area.
- Ground temperature time series measurements for a logger located in the burned area and a logger located in an unburned area. The ground temperature data consist of daily mean measurements at a depth of 0.15 m (active layer) and 1.00 m (permafrost) from July 2009 to August 2023.
- Photos ~50 permafrost boreholes and the associated cores collected there.
- A borehole log and notes pdf also accompanies our studies on the cryostratigraphy of permafrost post-fire and our observations on the recovery of permafrost.
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Synthesis of physical processes of permafrost degradation and geophysical and geomechanical properties of permafrost-affected soils.
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Permafrost, as an important part of the Cryosphere, has been strongly affected by climate warming, and a wide spread of permafrost responses to the warming is currently observed. In particular, at some locations rather slow rates of permafrost degradations are noticed. We related this behavior to the presence of unfrozen water in frozen fine‐grained earth material. In this paper, we examine not‐very‐commonly‐discussed heat flux from the ground surface into the permafrost and consequently discuss implications of the presence of unfrozen liquid water on long‐term thawing of permafrost. We conducted a series of numerical experiments and demonstrated that the presence of fine‐grained material with substantial unfrozen liquid water content at below 0°C temperature can significantly slow down the thawing rate and hence can increase resilience of permafrost to the warming events. This effect is highly nonlinear, and a difference between the rates of thawing in fine‐ and coarse‐grained materials is more drastic for lower values of heat flux incoming into permafrost. For high heat flux, the difference between these rates almost disappears. As near‐surface permafrost temperature increases towards 0°C and the changes in the ground temperature become less evident, the future observation networks should try to incorporate measurements of unfrozen liquid water content in the near‐surface permafrost and heat flux into permafrost in addition to the existing temperature observations.more » « less
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Abstract The stability of permafrost is of fundamental importance to socio-economic well-being and ecological services, involving broad impacts to hydrological cycling, global budgets of greenhouse gases and infrastructure safety. This study presents a biophysical permafrost zonation map that uses a rule-based geographic information system (GIS) model integrating global climate and ecological datasets to classify and map permafrost regions (totaling 19.76 × 10 6 km 2 , excluding glaciers and lakes) in the Northern Hemisphere into five types: climate-driven (CD) (19% of area), CD/ecosystem-modified (41%), CD/ecosystem protected (3%), ecosystem-driven (29%), and ecosystem-protected (8%). Overall, 81% of the permafrost regions in the Northern Hemisphere are modified, driven, or protected by ecosystems, indicating the dominant role of ecosystems in permafrost stability in the Northern Hemisphere. Permafrost driven solely by climate occupies 19% of permafrost regions, mainly in High Arctic and high mountains areas, such as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. This highlights the importance of reducing ecosystem disturbances (natural and human activity) to help slow permafrost degradation and lower the related risks from a warming climate.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- The DOI is not currently available.
