ALBERT

Description: Most permafrost is located in the Arctic, where frozen organic carbon makes it an important component of the global climate system. Despite the fact that the Arctic climate changes more rapidly than the rest of the globe, observational data density in the region is low. Permafrost thaw and carbon release to the atmosphere are a positive feedback mechanism that can exacerbate climate warming. This positive feedback functions via changing land-atmosphere energy and mass exchanges. There is thus a great need to understand links between the energy balance, which can vary rapidly over hourly to annual time scales, and permafrost, which changes slowly over long time periods. This understanding thus mandates long-term observational data sets. Such a data set is available from the Bayelva Site at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, where meteorology, energy balance components and subsurface observations have been made for the last 20 years. Additional data include a high resolution digital elevation model and a panchromatic image. This paper presents the data set produced so far, explains instrumentation, calibration, processing and data quality control, as well as the sources for various resulting data sets. The resulting data set is unique in the Arctic and serves a baseline for future studies. Since the data provide observations of temporally variable parameters that mitigate energy fluxes between permafrost and atmosphere, such as snow depth and soil moisture content, they are suitable for use in integrating, calibrating and testing permafrost as a component in Earth System Models. The data set also includes a high resolution digital elevation model that can be used together with the snow physical information for snow pack modeling. The presented data are available in the supplementary material for this paper and through the PANGAEA website ( https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.880120).

Description: Most of the world's permafrost is located in the Arctic, where its frozen organic carbon con-tent makes it a potentially important influence on the global climate system. The Arctic climate appears to be changing more rapidly than the lower latitudes, but observational data density in the region is low. Permafrost thaw and carbon release into the atmosphere is a positive feed-back mechanism that has the potential for climate warming. It is therefore particularly im-portant to understand the links between the energy balance, which can vary rapidly over hour-ly to annual time scales, and permafrost condition, which changes slowly on decadal to cen-tennial timescales. This requires long-term observational data such as that available from the Samoylov research site in northern Siberia, where meteorological parameters, energy balance, and subsurface observations have been recorded since 1998. This paper presents the temporal data set produced between 2002 and 2017, explaining the instrumentation, calibration, pro-cessing and data quality control. Additional data include a high-resolution digital terrain mod-el (DTM) obtained from terrestrial LiDAR laser scanning. Since the data provide observations of temporally variable parameters that influence energy fluxes between permafrost, active lay-er soils, and the atmosphere (such as snow depth and soil moisture content), they are suitable for calibrating and quantifying the dynamics of permafrost as a component in earth system models. The data also include soil properties beneath different microtopographic features (a polygon center, a rim, a slope, and a trough), yielding much-needed information on landscape heterogeneity for use in land surface modeling. For the record from 1998 to 2017, the average mean annual air temperature was −12.3°C, with mean monthly temperature of the warmest month (July) recorded as 9.5°C and for the coldest month (February) −32.7°C. The average annual rainfall was 169mm. The depth of zero annual amplitude niveau is at 20.8m, and has warmed from −9.1°C in 2006 to −7.7°C in 2017. The presented data are available in the supplementary material of this paper and through the PANGAEA website (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.891142).

Description: Most permafrost is located in the Arctic, where frozen organic carbon makes it an important component of the global climate system. Despite the fact that the Arctic climate changes more rapidly than the rest of the globe, observational data density in the region is low. Permafrost thaw and carbon release to the atmosphere are a positive feedback mechanism that can exacerbate global warming. This positive feedback functions via changing land–atmosphere energy and mass exchanges. There is thus a great need to understand links between the energy balance, which can vary rapidly over hourly to annual timescales, and permafrost, which changes slowly over long time periods. This understanding thus mandates long-term observational data sets. Such a data set is available from the Bayelva site at Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, where meteorology, energy balance components and subsurface observations have been made for the last 20 years. Additional data include a high-resolution digital elevation model (DEM) that can be used together with the snow physical information for snowpack modeling and a panchromatic image. This paper presents the data set produced so far, explains instrumentation, calibration, processing and data quality control, as well as the sources for various resulting data sets. The resulting data set is unique in the Arctic and serves as a baseline for future studies. The mean permafrost temperature is −2.8 °C, with a zero-amplitude depth at 5.5 m (2009–2017). Since the data provide observations of temporally variable parameters that mitigate energy fluxes between permafrost and atmosphere, such as snow depth and soil moisture content, they are suitable for use in integrating, calibrating and testing permafrost as a component in earth system models.The presented data are available in the Supplement for this paper (time series) and through the PANGAEA and Zenodo data portals: time series (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.880120, https://zenodo.org/record/1139714) and HRSC-AX data products (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.884730, https://zenodo.org/record/1145373).

Description: Most of the world's permafrost is located in the Arctic, where its frozen organic carbon content makes it a potentially important influence on the global climate system. The Arctic climate appears to be changing more rapidly than the lower latitudes, but observational data density in the region is low. Permafrost thaw and carbon release into the atmosphere, as well as snow cover changes, are positive feedback mechanisms that have the potential for climate warming. It is therefore particularly important to understand the links between the energy balance, which can vary rapidly over hourly to annual timescales, and permafrost conditions, which changes slowly on decadal to centennial timescales. This requires long-term observational data such as that available from the Samoylov research site in northern Siberia, where meteorological parameters, energy balance, and subsurface observations have been recorded since 1998. This paper presents the temporal data set produced between 2002 and 2017, explaining the instrumentation, calibration, processing, and data quality control. Furthermore, we present a merged data set of the parameters, which were measured from 1998 onwards. Additional data include a high-resolution digital terrain model (DTM) obtained from terrestrial lidar laser scanning. Since the data provide observations of temporally variable parameters that influence energy fluxes between permafrost, active-layer soils, and the atmosphere (such as snow depth and soil moisture content), they are suitable for calibrating and quantifying the dynamics of permafrost as a component in earth system models. The data also include soil properties beneath different microtopographic features (a polygon centre, a rim, a slope, and a trough), yielding much-needed information on landscape heterogeneity for use in land surface modelling. For the record from 1998 to 2017, the average mean annual air temperature was −12.3 ∘C, with mean monthly temperature of the warmest month (July) recorded as 9.5 ∘C and for the coldest month (February) −32.7 ∘C. The average annual rainfall was 169 mm. The depth of zero annual amplitude is at 20.75 m. At this depth, the temperature has increased from −9.1 ∘C in 2006 to −7.7 ∘C in 2017. The presented data are freely available through the PANGAEA (https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.891142) and Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/record/2223709, last access: 6 February 2019) websites.

Description: The Lena River Delta in Northern Yakutia forms one of the largest deltas in the Arctic and its catchment area (2 430 000 km2) is one of the largest in the whole of Eurasia. The study site is one of the coldest and driest places on Earth, with a mean annual air temperatures of about -13 °C, a large annual air temperature range of about 44 °C and summer precipitation usually less than 150 mm. Permafrost plays a major role for storage and release of water to rivers and surface and subsurface water bodies. Very cold continuous permafrost of about −8.6°C underlays the area between about 400 and 600 m below the surface and since 2006 the permafrost has warmed more than 1°C at 10.7 m. Roughly half of the land surface is dominated by wet surfaces, such as polygons, thermokarst lakes and ponds. Ponds are generally well mixed and experience high water temperatures up to 23°C during the summer and therefore are hotspots for biological activity and CO2 emission. Compared to the gaseous emissions, however, the lateral export of dissolved carbon from the polygonal tundra was negligible due to the small volumes of runoff. The ponds in the study area freeze completely in winter, whereas the deeper thermokarst lakes do not freeze to the bottom. These deep thermokarst lakes are thermally stratified during winter and reach maximum water temperatures of up to 19°C during summer. There are distinct differences in the zooplankton community between ponds and lakes, depending on their hydrological and chemical characteristics. Most productive ecosystems are thermokarst ponds with a high abundance of zooplankton and biomass. The summer water balance at the catchment scale was found to be mainly controlled by vertical fluxes (precipitation and evapotranspiration). Overall, the long-term summer storage (precipitation minus evapotranspiration) in the polygonal tundra from 1958-2011 is reasonably balanced with an average surplus of 5 mm. But it is also characterized by high inter-annual variability due to changes in precipitation. During negative water balance years where evapotranspiration exceeds precipitation, shallow water bodies dry out. This indicates that the extent of wetlands and water bodies will shift with changes in vertical water fluxes as well as permafrost warming and thaw.

Description: The importance of non-growing season greenhouse gas fluxes to annual budgets in pristine northern terrestrial ecosystems is growing in awareness. Greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes during the non-growing season and freeze-thaw dynamics are still underrepresented and may be a reason why current process-based models predict inadequate annual methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) budgets. FluxWIN is therefore investigating ecological and biogeochemical processes in global carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles during the non-growing and shoulder seasons by combining high-frequency greenhouse gas measurements, biogeochemical monitoring and process-based modeling. Siikaneva, nearby Hyytiälä Research Station in boreal Finland, is an ICOS-certified site and well situated within long-term scientific infrastructure to compare and combine high-frequency greenhouse gas measurement techniques and investigate freeze-thaw dynamics. An automated static chamber technique is used with inline laser gas analysis to obtain soil-atmosphere CH4 and N2O exchange in real time. Additional automated sampling of diffusion tubing will sample soil gas concentrations in the same analytical system. We control for climatic variability and isolate differences in non-growing season emissions by using a moisture gradient from well-drained upland soils to adjacent wetland ecosystems. The use of these automated high-frequency GHG measurements in combination with year-round biogeochemical monitoring maximizes the likelihood of capturing episodic emissions and their drivers, which are particularly important during fall freeze and spring thaw periods. The gained information on ecosystem function and biogeochemical cycles for temperate, boreal, and arctic regions will improve feedback estimates to climate change by including non-growing season processes in global-scale process-based models.

Description: The effect of climate warming on the degradation of permafrost in Arctic coastal lowlands and associated hydrological and biogeochemical processes varies between different types of permafrost deposits. The Lena River Delta consists of three geomorphological main terraces that differ in their genesis and stratigraphic, cryological, geomorphological and hydrological characteristics. The third terrace was formed during the late Pleistocene and consists mainly of Yedoma-type Ice Complex deposits, whereas the first terrace has formed during the Holocene by deltaic processes. Permafrost degradation on both terraces releases dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to thermokarst lakes and via streams DOC gets transported to the Lena River channels and the Arctic Ocean. This presentation shows 1. differences in the surface water chemistry between the first terrace and the Yedoma Ice Complex and their landforms, 2. analyses of the temporal variability of DOC during the summer, and 3. an estimation of summer DOC flux for the considered catchment of about 6.45 km2. Between June and September 2013 and 2014, respectively summer surface water and soil water samples were collected in a small catchment in the south of Kurungnakh Island in the central Lena River Delta. This catchment covers the first terrace as well as the Yedoma Ice Complex and is characterized by thermokarst lakes and streams on both terraces. Two weirs were installed in the main stream along the drainage flow path to continuously measure discharge during summer 2013. We divided the study area into landscape units and compared pH, electrical conductivity, stable isotopic composition and DOC concentrations between units and between terraces. The considered landscape units are streams and thermokarst lakes on Yedoma Ice Complex and on the first terrace, Yedoma uplands, streams, which are fed by the Ice Complex, a relict lake on the first terrace and the Olenyokskaya Channel, a main branch of the Lena River. DOC concentrations in the landscape units on Yedoma Ice Complex ranged between 3.5 mg L-1 (streams) and 52.5 mg L−1 (soilwater of Yedoma uplands) and on the first terrace between 2.8 mg L−1 (streams) and 15.6 mg L−1 (relict lake). The electrical conductivity on Yedoma Ice Complex ranged between 35 μS cm-1 (soilwater of Yedoma uplands) and 151 μS cm−1 (streams) and on the first terrace between 54 μS cm−1 (streams and relict lake) and 140 μS cm−1 (streams). δ18O values on Yedoma Ice Complex and first terrace ranged between -22.4 ‰ (soilwater of Yedoma uplands) and -16.4 ‰ (streams) and between -20.4 ‰and -14.7 ‰ (streams), respectively. δD ranged between -165.6 ‰ (soilwater of Yedoma uplands) and 125.5 ‰ (streams, which are fed by the Ice Complex) and between -160.8 ‰ and -119.4 ‰ (streams). Source waters on the Yedoma Ice Complex had higher DOC concentrations and lower electrical conductivity than Yedoma Ice Complex thermokarst lakes and the drainage flow path. This suggests that more labile organic carbon, perhaps derived from permafrost degradation on the Yedoma Ice Complex, enriches the lake but is removed from the lake, for example, by mineralization in the water column. Along the drainage flow path no further decrease of DOC concentration was observed, despite increasing discharge from weir 1 at the beginning of the flow path to almost two and a half times at weir 2 at the end of the flow path, and despite decreasing discharge during the measuring period from 1814 m3 d−1 in the end of July to 199 m3 d−1 in the end of August for weir 1 and from 2819 m3 d−1 in the end of July to 567 m3 d−1 in the end of August for weir 2. The temporal variability of DOC concentration during the sampling periods was low. In 2013 one sample site of soil water collection fluctuated slightly in August between 10.5 mg L−1 and 13.3 mg L−1, whereas the remaining landscape units showed no temporal variability. In 2014 the DOC concentration of the relict lake on the first terrace decreased from July (13.5 mg L−1) to September (11.1 mg L−1). Otherwise there were no changes in DOC concentration in the remaining landscape units. DOC measurements of the Olenyokskaya Channel show a decrease in DOC concentration from 12.4 mg L−1 in June to 7.6 mg L−1 in September. Using discharge data of 2013 a summer DOC flux of about 220 kg in 29 days for the study site above weir 2 with an area of 6.45 km2 was calculated.

Description: This study deals with the measurement and analysis of the water balance of an arctic tundra site in Siberia on the island of Samoylov (Lena River Delta, Russia). The island is underlain by continuous permafrost and is characterized by polygonal tundra structures. The quantification of precipitation, evapotranspiration, runoff and storage in the annual water budget was in the focus of this research. Furthermore, it was the goal to identify the relevant processes and seasonal dynamics which characterise the water balance. In addition to the data of the existing monitoring network (e.g. precipitation and evapotranspiration), spatially distributed runoff and water level measurements were obtained. The results of the measurements indicates a negative summer water balance (–23.3 mm), in which the evapotranspiration (190.9 mm) clearly exceeded the rainfall (167.6 mm). In the annual water balance the snow cover (65 mm) was a major source of water. The spring snowmelt was the principal recharge mechanism for the tundra. The runoff (4.8 mm) in the summertime was small compared to the other components of the water balance. Storage changes (soils, lakes, cracks and polygon ponds) are mainly controlled by precipitation and evapotranspiration. The importance of lateral groundwater fluxes increases towards the end of summer due to a maximum of active layer thickness, a high amount of rain and a raising water level in lakes and polygon ponds. The annual water balance is primarily determined by rainfall and evapotranspiration. The shallow active layer limits the lateral water movement, such as groundwater flow and runoff from the island. Variations in environmental and climate conditions due to climate change may have severe impacts on the water balance. Assumed higher evapotranspiration and increased active layer thickness could multiply the water losses and enhanced the degradation of the polygonal tundra landscape. This potentially leads to increased green house gas emissions, since the availability of carbon and other nutriens for biological processes strongly depends on water flow.