Publications related to Permafrost

Sulfur-cycling chemolithoautotrophic microbial community dominates a cold, anoxic, hypersaline Arctic spring

Background Gypsum Hill Spring, located in Nunavut in the Canadian High Arctic, is a rare example of a cold saline spring arising through thick permafrost. It perennially discharges cold (similar to 7 degrees C), hypersaline (7-8% salinity), anoxic (similar ...

BMC2023

On the Fabric of a 3D Printed Soil

Alessio Ferrari

3D printing of earthen materials is on the rise in the field of Additive Manufacturing (AM) due to the opportunity this technique offers to realize structures and manufacts with low environmental impacts, but very little is known about the hydromechanical ...

2023

Unexpectedly minor nitrous oxide emissions from fluvial networks draining permafrost catchments of the East Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Tom Ian Battin, Sibo Zhang

Streams and rivers emit substantial amounts of nitrous oxide (N2O) and are therefore an essential component of global nitrogen (N) cycle. Permafrost soils store a large reservoir of dormant N that, upon thawing, can enter fluvial networks and partly degrad ...

Nature Research2022

Arctic mercury cycling

Hélène Paule Angot

Anthropogenic mercury (Hg) emissions have driven marked increases in Arctic Hg levels, which are now being impacted by regional warming, with uncertain ecological consequences. This Review presents a comprehensive assessment of the present-day total Hg mas ...

2022

The microbiome of cryospheric ecosystems

Tom Ian Battin, Hannes Markus Peter, Susheel Bhanu Busi, Grégoire Marie Octave Edouard Michoud, Leïla Ezzat, Massimo Bourquin, Tyler Joe Kohler, Stylianos Fodelianakis

The cryosphere includes those parts of Earth where water or soil is frozen, such as snow, ice, glaciers and permafrost soils. Here, the authors present a global inventory of cryospheric microbial communities and their genetic repertoires. ...

Nature Portfolio2022

Mercury isotope evidence for Arctic summertime re-emission of mercury from the cryosphere

Jakob Boyd Pernov, Jenny Thomas

During Arctic springtime, halogen radicals oxidize atmospheric elemental mercury (Hg0), which deposits to the cryosphere. This is followed by a summertime atmospheric Hg0 peak that is thought to resultmostly fromterrestrial Hg inputs to the ArcticOcean, fo ...

Nature Research2022

Arctic atmospheric mercury: Sources and changes

Hélène Paule Angot

Global anthropogenic and legacy mercury (Hg) emissions are the main sources of Arctic Hg contamination, primarily transported there via the atmosphere. This review summarizes the state of knowledge of the global anthropogenic sources of Hg emissions, and e ...

2022

Annual cycle observations of aerosols capable of ice formation in central Arctic clouds

Julia Schmale, Ivo Fabio Beck

The Arctic is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, prompting glacial melt, permafrost thaw, and sea ice decline. These severe consequences induce feedbacks that contribute to amplified warming, affecting weather and climate globally. Aerosols and cl ...

Nature Research2022

What are the likely changes in mercury concentration in the Arctic atmosphere and ocean under future emissions scenarios?

Hélène Paule Angot

Arctic mercury (Hg) concentrations respond to changes in anthropogenic Hg emissions and environmental change. This manuscript, prepared for the 2021 Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme Mercury Assessment, explores the response of Arctic Ocean Hg con ...

2022

In situ observations of the Swiss periglacial environment using GNSS instruments

Alessandro Cicoira, Matthias Meyer, Hugo Raetzo

Monitoring of the periglacial environment is relevant for many disciplines including glaciology, natural hazard management, geomorphology, and geodesy. Since October 2022, Rock Glacier Velocity (RGV) is a new Essential Climate Variable (ECV) product within ...

COPERNICUS GESELLSCHAFT MBH2022

Climate change scenarios at hourly time‐step over Switzerland from an enhanced temporal downscaling approach

Varun Sharma, Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Adrien Michel

Many physically‐based models for climate change impact studies require sub‐daily temporal resolution of the forcing data to provide meaningful predictions. However, climate scenarios are typically available at daily time step, severely limiting the applica ...

2021

Cyclic thermomechanical behaviour of pile-soil interface and design methods for energy pile foundations

Elena Ravera

Energy piles are shallow geothermal systems integrated into structures already required for structural functions of civil works that provide both geothermal energy supply and structural support to the built environments. This research work is driven by the ...

EPFL2021

Dataset for: Climate change scenarios at hourly time-step over Switzerland from an enhanced temporal downscaling approach

Michael Lehning, Varun Sharma, Wolf Hendrik Huwald, Adrien Michel

In fall 2019, a new set of climate change scenarios has been released for Switzerland, the CH2018 dataset (www.climate-scenarios.ch). The data areprovided at daily resolution. We produced from the CH2018 dataset a new set of climate change scenarios tempor ...

2021

Assessing the impact of ground ice degradation on high mountain lake environments (Lago Nero catchment, Swiss Alps)

Nicola Deluigi, Monica Bulgheroni

In high mountain hydrosystems, glacial meltwater composition is potentially affected by the degradation of alpine permafrost terrains and ground ice bodies releasing atmospheric pollutants that have been stored in permafrost terrains for several decades. I ...

SPRINGER BASEL AG2020

Key rules of life and the fading cryosphere: impacts in alpine lakes and streams

Tom Ian Battin, Chenxi Wu, Jun Wen, Xiong Xiong

Alpine regions are changing rapidly due to loss of snow and ice in response to ongoing climate change. While studies have documented ecological responses in alpine lakes and streams to these changes, our ability to predict such outcomes is limited. We prop ...

2020

Where does the river end? Drivers of spatiotemporal variability in CO2 concentration and flux in the inflow area of a large boreal lake

Natacha Tofield-Pasche, Hannah Elisa Chmiel

River inflow affects the spatiotemporal variability of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the water column of lakes and may locally influence CO2 gas exchange with the atmosphere. However, spatiotemporal CO2 variability at river inflow sites is often unknown leaving ...

American Society of Limnology and Oceanography2020

The European mountain cryosphere: a review of its current state, trends, and future challenges

Michael Lehning, Wolf Hendrik Huwald

The mountain cryosphere of mainland Europe is recognized to have important impacts on a range of environmental processes. In this paper, we provide an overview on the current knowledge on snow, glacier, and permafrost processes, as well as their past, curr ...

2018

Impacts of Polar Changes on the UV-induced Mineralization of Terrigenous Dissolved Organic Matter

Jeremy Samuel Arey

Local climates in the Northern and Southern Hemisphere are influenced by Arctic Amplification and by interactions of the Antarctic ozone hole with climate change, respectively. Polar changes may affect hydroclimatic conditions in temperate regions, for exa ...

Amer Chemical Soc2016

Assessing Seasonal Backscatter Variations with Respect to Uncertainties in Soil Moisture Retrieval in Siberian Tundra Regions

Isabelle Amandine Gouttevin

Knowledge of surface hydrology is essential for many applications, including studies that aim to understand permafrost response to changing climate and the associated feedback mechanisms. Advanced remote sensing techniques make it possible to retrieve a ra ...

Mdpi Ag2014

Atmospheric and oceanic climate forcing of the exceptional Greenland ice sheet surface melt in summer 2012

Konrad Steffen

The NASA announcement of record surface melting of the Greenland ice sheet in July 2012 led us to examine the atmospheric and oceanic climatic anomalies that are likely to have contributed to these exceptional conditions and also to ask the question of how ...

Wiley-Blackwell2014