Permafrost and Active Layer Modeling in the Northern Eurasia using MODIS Land Surface Temperature as an input data.

Abstract

Recently, there have been a number of experiments to simulate soil temperature and permafrost dynamics on regional and global scales. In these simulations, that employ some stand-alone equilibrium or transient permafrost models, the upper boundary conditions are usually the air temperature from observations or climate forcing from available Global or Regional Climate Models. In this research we used the GIPL-1.1 model, which is a spatially distributed model of permafrost based on an approximate analytical solution of soil freezing and thawing, and which includes an estimation of thermal offset due to the difference in frozen and thawed soil thermal properties. The GIPL-1.1 model also accounts effectively for the effects of snow cover, vegetation, soil moisture, and soil thermal properties.