Journal Article

Permafrost is warming at a global scale

Kaverin, Dmitry, Matthes, Heidrun, Meiklejohn, Ian, Malkova, Galina, Abramov, Andrey, Sergeev, Dmitrii, Romanovsky, Vladimir E., Johannsson, Halldor, Streletskiy, Dmitry A., Joo, Anseok, Drozdov, Dmitry, Johansson, Margareta, Seybold, Cathy, Skryabin, Pavel, Smith, Sharon L., Kröger, Tim, Allard, Michel, Zheleznyak, Mikhail, Ishikawa, Mamoru, Sannel, A. Britta K., Luo, Dongliang, Vasiliev, Alexander, Biskaborn, Boris K., Kholodov, Alexander, Vieira, Gonçalo, Cable, William L., Lanckman, Jean-Pierre, Guglielmin, Mauro, Grosse, Guido, Moskalenko, Natalia, Schoeneich, Philippe, Lambiel, Christophe, Phillips, Marcia, Diekmann, Bernhard, Ramos, Miguel, Wu, Qingbai, Lewkowicz, Antoni G., Boike, Julia, Christiansen, Hanne H., Oliva, Marc, Konstantinov, Pavel, Etzelmüller, Bernd, Noetzli, Jeannette, Ingeman-Nielsen, Thomas, Delaloye, Reynald, Lantuit, Hugues, Isaksen, Ketil, Yoshikawa, Kenji

2019

Overview

Permafrost warming has the potential to amplify global climate change, because when frozen sediments thaw it unlocks soil organic carbon. Yet to date, no globally consistent assessment of permafrost temperature change has been compiled. Here we use a global data set of permafrost temperature time series from the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost to evaluate temperature change across permafrost regions for the period since the International Polar Year (2007–2009). During the reference decade between 2007 and 2016, ground temperature near the depth of zero annual amplitude in the continuous permafrost zone increased by 0.39 ± 0.15 °C. Over the same period, discontinuous permafrost warmed by 0.20 ± 0.10 °C. Permafrost in mountains warmed by 0.19 ± 0.05 °C and in Antarctica by 0.37 ± 0.10 °C. Globally, permafrost temperature increased by 0.29 ± 0.12 °C. The observed trend follows the Arctic amplification of air temperature increase in the Northern Hemisphere. In the discontinuous zone, however, ground warming occurred due to increased snow thickness while air temperature remained statistically unchanged. Climate change strongly impacts regions in high latitudes and altitudes that store high amounts of carbon in yet frozen ground. Here the authors show that the consequence of these changes is global warming of permafrost at depths greater than 10 m in the Northern Hemisphere, in mountains, and in Antarctica.

• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group UK,Nature Publishing Group,Nature Portfolio
• Subject: 704/106/694/2739/2807 / 704/172/4081 / Air temperature / Amplification / Canvis climàtics / Climate change / Climate Science / Climatic changes / Earth / Earth and Related Environmental Sciences / Earth temperature / Escalfament global / Frozen ground / Geotèrmia / Geovetenskap och relaterad miljövetenskap / Global climate / Global warming / Humanities and Social Sciences / Klimatvetenskap / Mountains / multidisciplinary / Natural Sciences / Naturvetenskap / Northern Hemisphere / open climate campaign / Organic carbon / Organic soils / Permafrost / Science / Science (multidisciplinary) / Sediments / Sòls gelats / Temperature effects / Terra