Impacts of permafrost degradation on infrastructure

The warming and thawing of ice-rich permafrost pose considerable threat to the integrity of polar and high-altitude infrastructure, in turn jeopardizing sustainable development. In this Review, we explore the extent and costs of observed and predicted infrastructure damage associated with permafrost degradation, and the methods available to mitigate such adverse consequences. Permafrost change imposes various threats to infrastructure, namely through warming, active layer thickening and thaw-related hazards such as thermokarst and mass wasting.These impacts, often linked to anthropogenic warming, are exacerbated through increased human activity. Observed infrastructure damage is substantial, with up to 80% of buildings in some Russian cities and -30% of some road surfaces in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau reporting damage. Under anthropogenic warming, infrastructure damage is projected to continue, with 30-50% of critical circumpolar infrastructure thought to be at high risk by 2050. Accordingly, permafrost degradation-related infrastructure costs could rise to tens of billions of US dollars by the second half of the century. Several mitigation techniques exist to alleviate these impacts, including convection embankments, thermosyphons and piling foundations, with proven success at preserving and cooling permafrost and stabilizing infrastructure. To be effective, however, better understanding is needed on the regions at high risk.Peer reviewe

ROADS AND AIRFIELDS CONSTRUCTED ON PERMAFROST: A Synthesis of Practice

This synthesis provides the practicing engineer with the basic knowledge required to build roadway and airports over permafrost terrain. Topic covered include an overview of permafrost, geotechnical investigations, slope stability, impacts of climate, and adaptation strategies during the design, construction and maintenance phases. The purpose of the synthesis is not to provide a comprehensive body of knowledge or to provide a complete how‐to manual. Rather the synthesis provides a working knowledge for those working in permafrost regions such that the practicing engineer will be able to work with subject matter experts to obtain the desired project outcomes

Risk Evaluation for Permafrost-Related Threats:Methods of Risk Estimation and Sources of Information

In our evaluation of permafrost-related threats that affect Alaska communities, we have focused on threats associated with permafrost degradation and thawing ground ice, which can result in significant thaw settlement and cause unacceptable damage to engineered structures. Our evaluation system for permafrost-related threats includes risks of general permafrost degradation and thaw settlement (general and differential). We have evaluated permafrost-related threats for 187 Alaska villages based on available information including scientific publications, maps, satellite imagery and aerial photographs, geotechnical reports, personal communication, community plans and reports, and other sources. Evaluation was based on five criteria: permafrost (PF) occurrence; PF temperature; thaw susceptibility of frozen soils (expected thaw settlement in case of permafrost degradation); massive ice occurrence; and existing PF-related problems. For each of these categories, four risk levels (ranks) were considered. The total (cumulative) risk level was based on the rating score (sum of individual ranks for all five categories). Based on the rating score, each village was assigned one of four risk levels: 0 – no permafrost; 5–8 – low risk level; 9–11 – medium risk level; 12–15 – high risk level. A vulnerability score was developed for each community allowing the identification of communities with the highest risk of damage due to thawing permafrost. Most of communities with the high-risk level (22 villages of 34) are underlain by continuous permafrost, while the low risk level is typical mainly of communities underlain by predominantly unfrozen soils/bedrocks (33 villages of 46), and no high risk levels were detected for this group of villages. Medium risk level is typical mainly of communities underlain by discontinuous and sporadic permafrost (35 villages of 47); some villages of this group are characterized by high and low risk levels (12 and 9, correspondingly). Occurrence of massive-ice bodies (mostly ice wedges) is typical exclusively of communities underlain by continuous and discontinuous permafrost (23 and 20 villages, correspondingly). We presume that at least 20 communities may have extremely ice-rich yedoma deposits with large ice wedges either within villages or in their vicinity. Permafrost conditions in Alaskan communities are very diverse, and in many cases they are extremely variable even within the same community. Detailed studies are required for more precise evaluation of potential permafrost-related threats associated with permafrost degradation and/or thawing of ground ice.The Denali Commissio

State of the climate in 2018

In 2018, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—continued their increase. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth’s surface was 407.4 ± 0.1 ppm, the highest in the modern instrumental record and in ice core records dating back 800 000 years. Combined, greenhouse gases and several halogenated gases contribute just over 3 W m−2 to radiative forcing and represent a nearly 43% increase since 1990. Carbon dioxide is responsible for about 65% of this radiative forcing. With a weak La Niña in early 2018 transitioning to a weak El Niño by the year’s end, the global surface (land and ocean) temperature was the fourth highest on record, with only 2015 through 2017 being warmer. Several European countries reported record high annual temperatures. There were also more high, and fewer low, temperature extremes than in nearly all of the 68-year extremes record. Madagascar recorded a record daily temperature of 40.5°C in Morondava in March, while South Korea set its record high of 41.0°C in August in Hongcheon. Nawabshah, Pakistan, recorded its highest temperature of 50.2°C, which may be a new daily world record for April. Globally, the annual lower troposphere temperature was third to seventh highest, depending on the dataset analyzed. The lower stratospheric temperature was approximately fifth lowest. The 2018 Arctic land surface temperature was 1.2°C above the 1981–2010 average, tying for third highest in the 118-year record, following 2016 and 2017. June’s Arctic snow cover extent was almost half of what it was 35 years ago. Across Greenland, however, regional summer temperatures were generally below or near average. Additionally, a satellite survey of 47 glaciers in Greenland indicated a net increase in area for the first time since records began in 1999. Increasing permafrost temperatures were reported at most observation sites in the Arctic, with the overall increase of 0.1°–0.2°C between 2017 and 2018 being comparable to the highest rate of warming ever observed in the region. On 17 March, Arctic sea ice extent marked the second smallest annual maximum in the 38-year record, larger than only 2017. The minimum extent in 2018 was reached on 19 September and again on 23 September, tying 2008 and 2010 for the sixth lowest extent on record. The 23 September date tied 1997 as the latest sea ice minimum date on record. First-year ice now dominates the ice cover, comprising 77% of the March 2018 ice pack compared to 55% during the 1980s. Because thinner, younger ice is more vulnerable to melting out in summer, this shift in sea ice age has contributed to the decreasing trend in minimum ice extent. Regionally, Bering Sea ice extent was at record lows for almost the entire 2017/18 ice season. For the Antarctic continent as a whole, 2018 was warmer than average. On the highest points of the Antarctic Plateau, the automatic weather station Relay (74°S) broke or tied six monthly temperature records throughout the year, with August breaking its record by nearly 8°C. However, cool conditions in the western Bellingshausen Sea and Amundsen Sea sector contributed to a low melt season overall for 2017/18. High SSTs contributed to low summer sea ice extent in the Ross and Weddell Seas in 2018, underpinning the second lowest Antarctic summer minimum sea ice extent on record. Despite conducive conditions for its formation, the ozone hole at its maximum extent in September was near the 2000–18 mean, likely due to an ongoing slow decline in stratospheric chlorine monoxide concentration. Across the oceans, globally averaged SST decreased slightly since the record El Niño year of 2016 but was still far above the climatological mean. On average, SST is increasing at a rate of 0.10° ± 0.01°C decade−1 since 1950. The warming appeared largest in the tropical Indian Ocean and smallest in the North Pacific. The deeper ocean continues to warm year after year. For the seventh consecutive year, global annual mean sea level became the highest in the 26-year record, rising to 81 mm above the 1993 average. As anticipated in a warming climate, the hydrological cycle over the ocean is accelerating: dry regions are becoming drier and wet regions rainier. Closer to the equator, 95 named tropical storms were observed during 2018, well above the 1981–2010 average of 82. Eleven tropical cyclones reached Saffir–Simpson scale Category 5 intensity. North Atlantic Major Hurricane Michael’s landfall intensity of 140 kt was the fourth strongest for any continental U.S. hurricane landfall in the 168-year record. Michael caused more than 30 fatalities and $25 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages. In the western North Pacific, Super Typhoon Mangkhut led to 160 fatalities and$6 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages across the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was responsible for 170 fatalities in Vietnam and Laos. Nearly all the islands of Micronesia experienced at least moderate impacts from various tropical cyclones. Across land, many areas around the globe received copious precipitation, notable at different time scales. Rodrigues and Réunion Island near southern Africa each reported their third wettest year on record. In Hawaii, 1262 mm precipitation at Waipā Gardens (Kauai) on 14–15 April set a new U.S. record for 24-h precipitation. In Brazil, the city of Belo Horizonte received nearly 75 mm of rain in just 20 minutes, nearly half its monthly average. Globally, fire activity during 2018 was the lowest since the start of the record in 1997, with a combined burned area of about 500 million hectares. This reinforced the long-term downward trend in fire emissions driven by changes in land use in frequently burning savannas. However, wildfires burned 3.5 million hectares across the United States, well above the 2000–10 average of 2.7 million hectares. Combined, U.S. wildfire damages for the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons exceeded $40 billion (U.S. dollars)

Dalton Highway 9 to 11 Mile Expedient Resistivity Permafrost Investigation

AKSAS #61085/T2-12-24Federal # HPR-4000(058)This project performed capacitive coupled resistivity surveys over a roadway reconstruction project in Interior Alaska, for the determination of permafrost extent. The objective was to ascertain the ability of an expedient earth resistivity survey system to effectively obtain permafrost information to be utilized for design. This section of roadway traverses ice-rich discontinuous permafrost terrain, and to prevent costly long term thaw-settlement, thermal mitigation was included in the form of subsurface extruded polystyrene rigid board insulation. To insure optimal installation of the thermal protection, an effective method was needed to determine the location and depth of frozen soil. Two transects were surveyed along the existing roadway surface for nearly the full length of the project. In addition, continuous soil samples were drilled at select portions of the project for ground-truth of the survey results. Lastly, sub-grade soils samples were collected during excavation of the ice-rich cuts areas for further correlation with survey results

Impacts of permafrost degradation on infrastructure

Abstract The warming and thawing of ice-rich permafrost pose considerable threat to the integrity of polar and high-altitude infrastructure, in turn jeopardizing sustainable development. In this Review, we explore the extent and costs of observed and predicted infrastructure damage associated with permafrost degradation, and the methods available to mitigate such adverse consequences. Permafrost change imposes various threats to infrastructure, namely through warming, active layer thickening and thaw-related hazards such as thermokarst and mass wasting. These impacts, often linked to anthropogenic warming, are exacerbated through increased human activity. Observed infrastructure damage is substantial, with up to 80% of buildings in some Russian cities and ~30% of some road surfaces in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau reporting damage. Under anthropogenic warming, infrastructure damage is projected to continue, with 30–50% of critical circumpolar infrastructure thought to be at high risk by 2050. Accordingly, permafrost degradation-related infrastructure costs could rise to tens of billions of US dollars by the second half of the century. Several mitigation techniques exist to alleviate these impacts, including convection embankments, thermosyphons and piling foundations, with proven success at preserving and cooling permafrost and stabilizing infrastructure. To be effective, however, better understanding is needed on the regions at high risk