This session is intended as a forum for scientists involved in state-of-the-art research on permafrost disturbance dynamics, associated processes, and impacts. We welcome contributions concerning studies on different scales, from local studies including field observations, near-surface geophysics, and drone measurements, to regional and circumpolar analyses supported by remote sensing tech-niques and modelling approaches. We encourage submissions targeted at dynamic permafrost dis-turbance processes, including thermokarst, coastal erosion, anthropogenic impacts, hydrology, mass movements, sediment fluxes, biogeochemical cycling and associated fluxes.
This session seeks abstracts on (1) novel observations of permafrost disturbance-related phenome-na; (2) the impact of permafrost changes on the natural and human environment; and (3) advances and new developments in measurement, modelling, parametrization, and understanding of perma-frost-related processes.
We particularly encourage contributions that (a) identify processes related to disturbances and envi-ronmental changes in permafrost regions; (b) present novel measurement and monitoring ap-proaches; (c) outline new strategies to improve process understanding; (d) come from or interface with neighbouring fields of science or apply innovative technologies and methods; and (e) investigate model validation, model uncertainty, and scaling issues of diverse processes.
Orals: Tue, 5 May, 10:45–12:30 | Room 1.34
Ground temperatures are steadily increasing across the Arctic. Observations also show increasing active layer thickness. This leads to melt of ice at the upper permafrost boundary and changes in microtopography. Land surface deformation derived from SAR interferometry can serve as an indication for potential permafrost degradation and as a tool to describe wet/dry gradients. Progress has been made specifically with the launch of the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission in 2014. Challenges remain including data gaps due to acquisition strategies, and ionospheric and atmospheric effects.
Sentinel-1 data availability and processing constrains have been investigated across Arctic permafrost lowlands. Specifically, the impact of spatial filtering for the reduction of ionospheric and atmospheric effects has been assessed. Within season and multiannual deformation has been derived for five distinct environments across Northern America and Northern Eurasia. Results were assessed to a range of environmental parameters including land cover and permafrost properties (Permafrost CCI records) using Random Forest regressor analyses.
On average data from half of the years could be utilized. Differences in deformation patterns were found due to region specific disturbances, but in general linkages with landcover and permafrost properties were similar across the Arctic.
How to cite: Bartsch, A., Widhalm, B., Radha Krishnan, S. R., and Liu, Z.: A decade of land surface deformation monitoring across Arctic lowland permafrost regions with Sentinel-1, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-9055, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9055, 2026.
The stability of permafrost is regulated by the thermal insulating properties of soil organic carbon (SOC). However, intensifying wildfires across the Arctic and boreal regions are removing the protective soil organic layer, which may trigger positive feedback that accelerates thaw, yet the pan-Arctic scale of this threat remains unknown. Here we present a data-driven framework, aiming to address two questions: i) what is the net SOC loss due to fire across the northern permafrost zones, accounting for immediate SOC combustion and post-fire recovery, and ii) to what extent does this fire-induced SOC reduction accelerate permafrost degradation. To achieve this, we developed a bookkeeping model parameterized by SOC data from over 1,000 paired burned and unburned sites across diverse ecosystems to simulate fire-induced SOC dynamics, and a permafrost probability model based on air temperature and SOC content, advancing earlier temperature-only approaches. Driven by CMIP6 climate and burned area projections, we find that under SSP1-2.6, fire-induced SOC loss, considering both combustion and post-fire recovery, reaches 15.0±3.6 Pg C by 2100. This SOC reduction diminishes the soil’s insulative capacity, leading to an additional permafrost loss of 2.7±0.7 million hectares. This impact is most pronounced under low-emission scenarios, where permafrost exists in a climatically marginal state; here, every 1 km² of increased burned area causes 0.19 km² of additional permafrost loss. Under SSP5-8.5, fire-driven permafrost loss is less pronounced as rapid atmospheric warming is the predominant driver. Our findings reveal that wildfire is an efficient agent of permafrost thaw, highlighting the urgent need to incorporate dynamic fire-SOC-thermal interactions into ESMs to avoid underestimation of future permafrost degradation.
How to cite: Zhu, D., Zhang, Y., Wang, Z., Chen, Y., Ciais, P., and Wang, T.: Wildfires accelerate permafrost area loss via reducing soil organic matter, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-17317, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-17317, 2026.
Permafrost thaw features –such as thermokarst lakes, retrogressive thaw slumps, and thermo-erosional gullies– are becoming increasingly widespread across the Arctic as a direct result of warming global temperatures. Permafrost underlies 15% of the land surface area in the Northern Hemisphere, and globally is estimated to store substantially more carbon (1,300 Pg of C) than all the world's forests. Despite the massive amount of permafrost soil carbon, little is known about the processes that spur microbial respiration as the soils transition to a post-thaw state, resulting in increased contributions of greenhouse gas emissions. Understanding these processes is particularly important in regions underlain by late Pleistocene, ice-rich Yedoma deposits that contain large amounts of buried, poorly decomposed organic matter. To investigate the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) contribution of these thaw features in Yedoma landscapes, we sampled carbon dioxide and methane gas fluxes across eight thaw transects on the Baldwin Peninsula (Western Alaska) in the summers of 2023 and 2024. We used manual chamber measurements to measure the in-situ GHG fluxes and recorded site parameters to categorize the extent of thaw disturbance (including topography, active layer depth, soil moisture, vegetation, and more).
From these measurements, we found that permafrost thaw increased CH4 fluxes exponentially relative to adjacent undisturbed tundra, with mean fluxes ranging from 0.6 to 7.0 mg CH4-C m-2 d-1 and 25.6, 67.4, 71.9 mg CH4-C m-2 d-1 in recently drained thermokarst lake basins, thaw ponds, and thermo-erosional gullies, respectively. Almost all sites were net sources of methane to the atmosphere, with the exception of two upland measurements in minimal thaw disturbance landscapes (CH4 fluxes were < -0.3 mg CH4 m-2 d-1 representing net CH4 oxidation). Across all landscapes included in the sampling, retrogressive thaw slumps, representing freshly exposed Yedoma deposits, had the highest mean CH4 flux among the other disturbed permafrost landforms (159 mg CH4-C m-2 d-1). Though undisturbed upland sites are generally thought to be net sinks of carbon, our measurements show that methane emissions were ubiquitous – even in well aerated sites, suggesting complex or inhomogeneous subsurface conditions. In these undisturbed sites, ecosystem respiration fluxes from sites that had vegetation were not significantly different than those with bare soil, suggesting that it was not the upland plant life driving net GHG patterns. Rather, we propose that the underlying carbon-rich Holocene soils and late Pleistocene Yedoma deposits provide a consistent trickle of methane and CO2 to the surface. This study provides field data on CH₄ and CO₂ fluxes across multiple thaw landforms in a Western Alaska Yedoma landscape, highlighting the potential role of deep carbon mobilization across a gradient of disturbance.
How to cite: Baysinger, M., Hashmi, W., Inauen, C., Grosse, G., Hanna, C., Lübker, T., Veremeeva, A., Sanders, T., Marushchak, M., and Treat, C.: Permafrost thaw increases CH4 fluxes in disturbed Yedoma tundra landscapes in Western Alaska , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19294, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19294, 2026.
Arctic regions are undergoing rapid climatic change, including an increasing proportion of rain in annual precipitation. This change is expected to alter ground thermal regimes, permafrost stability, and soil hydrological processes. While previous studies have primarily focused on the effects of rising air temperatures on permafrost, the impact of changes in precipitation remains insufficiently quantified, given the variability and uncertainty of future precipitation projections.
This study evaluates the effects of altered precipitation patterns on active layer dynamics at Zackenberg, northeast Greenland. We combined long-term field observations with pedon-scale modelling using the CryoGrid community model, a coupled soil thermal-hydrological model that explicitly represents water and ice dynamics. We derived model parameters from site-specific measurements and calibration, and then validated their performance against independent observations. We obtained future precipitation scenarios from bias-corrected HIRHAM5 RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 projections.
The model reproduces the main hydrothermal dynamics of the active layer well. Simulation uncertainties remain due to simplified representations of percolation, snow insulation, and limited soil moisture data. Parameter evaluation reveals equifinality among evaporation depth, the evapotranspiration ratio, and saturated hydraulic conductivity. Uncorrected HIRHAM5 forcing exhibits a pronounced cold bias, resulting in underestimated active layer thickness (ALT) and emphasising the need for bias correction. High interannual variability in precipitation amount and rain–snow partitioning strongly influences both ALT development and freeze-back dynamics, largely independent of mean air temperature trends. Differences between RCP8.5 and a wetter, modified scenario suggest that wetter conditions can constrain active layer deepening under otherwise identical forcing, indicating that increased soil moisture may partially buffer warming effects. Our results show that uncertainties in precipitation projections have a major impact on active layer dynamics, providing process-based evidence that precipitation is a key driver in warming Arctic permafrost regions.
How to cite: Ruge, L., Marttila, H., López-Blanco, E., and Klaus, J.: Process-based modelling of active layer dynamics under changing Arctic precipitation: insights from Zackenberg, Greenland, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13863, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13863, 2026.
The Smoking Hills (Ingniryuat) is a polar desert of Arctic Canada, which contains naturally occurring streams and ponds of hyper-acidic (pH < −2) metal-rich brines (total dissolved solids up to 394,000 mg/L). Acid waters are formed though oxidation of pyrite and metal-rich mudstones of the Late Cretaceous Smoking Hills Formation. Water in contact with the mudstones rapidly changes chemistry, becoming acidic, metal-rich, and opaque orange due to precipitation of Fe-sulfates. Acid generation occurs through mass wasting of Smoking Hills Formation mudstones due to permafrost thaw and ground ice melt in addition to coastal erosion and stream undercutting. Fluvial incision through bedrock strata also leads to acid generation. These hyper-acidic metal-rich waters discharge to larger river systems and are transported to the Arctic Ocean, increasing some metal concetrations to exceed health guidelines for drinking water and skin contact. Climate warming will likely increase slumping rates and associated debris flows, impounding more surface ponds and stream courses, generating more acid waters, amplifying toxic metal flux to the environment, and drive river ‘rusting’.
How to cite: Grasby, S.: Release of toxic-metal acid-brines related to permafrost thaw driven slumping of Cretaceous mudstones – Smoking Hills (Ingniryuat), Arctic Canada, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14256, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14256, 2026.
As a primary driver of anthropogenic disturbance, roads significantly impact the fragile ecological balance and serve as a critical indicator for quantifying human expansion in the Arctic wilderness. However, current geospatial datasets in these high-latitude regions suffer from severe fragmentation and limited coverage, creating a blind spot that impedes precise environmental monitoring and sustainable development planning. To address these deficiencies, this study explores the potential of utilizing Google Satellite Embeddings combined with deep learning methods to extract roads in the Arctic wilderness. Specifically, we propose the Wilderness Area Road Extraction Network (WARE-Net), a novel road extraction model based on a U-shaped architecture. The model integrates an encoder adapted for these Embeddings to enhance feature representation. To identify road morphological characteristics, a Linear Feature Enhancement Module is developed to effectively capture multi-directional linear features. Furthermore, in the decoding phase, a detection head fusing the outputs of three decoding modules is designed to improve road extraction performance. Experimental results demonstrate that WARE-Net achieves satisfactory performance on the test set, with an F1 score of 76.17% and an IoU of 63.58%. Moreover, road extraction experiments conducted in the Khanty-Mansiysky District (Russia, covering 46,400 km2) further validate the effectiveness and generalization capability of the proposed method. In conclusion, our approach holds significant promise for achieving large-scale, rapid, and accurate wilderness road extraction, thereby providing vital technical support for sustainable development assessment in the Arctic.
How to cite: Wang, J. and Liu, C.: WARE-Net: A Deep Learning Framework for Arctic Wilderness Road Extraction Using Google Satellite Embeddings, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-9401, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-9401, 2026.
Climate warming as well as anthropogenic effects are disturbing subsurface thermal and water regimes in northern regions. As an arctic nation, Canada continues to expand all-season transportation linkages to improve access to remote communities, natural resources, and emerging marine corridors. While these investments provide substantial societal, economic, and strategic benefits, the ground-infrastructure-climate interactions can prove complicated on the local and regional scale. The Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway (ITH), located within the continuous permafrost zone, is Canada’s first all-season road to reach the Arctic coast and represents an important transition toward climate-adaptive infrastructure design. The highway incorporates numerous drainage crossings where bridges are founded on deep foundations embedded in frozen ground. Hans Creek Bridge, located at 57 km along ITH, is a three-span structure with abutments and piers founded on adfreeze piles in permafrost. Adfreeze pile foundations require cold temperatures (<-1oC) to support the overlying super-structure, making them highly sensitive to changes in ground temperature. The bridge as also constructed to be climate adaptation–ready, allowing for future installation of thermosyphons should mitigation become necessary. Ground temperature monitoring, correlated with near-surface geophysics, indicates that thermal conditions at the abutments are cooling as intended; however, temperatures of the pier foundations have increased over time, potentially due to localized groundwater seepage effects. This spatial variability highlights the importance of site-specific coupled thermal-seepage processes affecting the permafrost response. Preliminary coupled seepage-thermal modelling results indicate seepage velocities greater than approximately 1 cm / day could significantly reduce thermosyphon efficiency. Thermosyphon installation can be customized to increase effectiveness of passive ground cooling under complex thermal and hydrological conditions. The combined approach using ground temperature measurements and near surface geophysics as well as coupled seepage-thermal modeling highlights the coupled climate change–anthropogenic effects on critical arctic infrastructure and the owner’s plan to stave off these same effects.
How to cite: Siemens, G. and Schetselaar, A.: Coupled seepage-thermal effects and adaptation measures for an arctic bridge, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-14381, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-14381, 2026.
Arctic continental shelves play a key role in the biogeochemical cycle by transporting and storing organic matter (OM) originating from permafrost, yet the spatial variability of sedimentation and OM accumulation remains poorly constrained. On the Canadian Beaufort Shelf, existing estimates of organic carbon (OC) storage are based on Holocene sedimentation rates derived from seismic data, while direct observations are rare and geographically limited (n=5). Here, we present new sedimentological and radiometric data from 17 sites spanning the Beaufort Shelf and continental slope. Measurements of total organic carbon, grain and dry density, as well as radionuclide profiles (210Pb, 226Ra, 137Cs), are used to estimate sediment accumulation, mass accumulation, and OC burial over the last ~150 years. Sedimentation rates derived from the Constant Flux-Constant Sedimentation (CF:CS) model are compared with those from a Bayesian 210Pb age modeling framework (rplum). CF:CS yields higher sedimentation rates (mean = 0.23 ± 0.15 cm yr-1) than rplum (mean = 0.17 ± 0.07 cm yr-1). Estimated OC burial rates range from 3.6 to 51.4 g m-2 yr-1, with the highest values found near the Mackenzie Delta and in the Kugmallit Trough. For shelf areas between 20-100 m water depth, our new data suggest average OC burial rates (24.4 g m-2 yr-1) that are three times higher than previously reported. Combined with shallow-shelf estimates, total carbon burial is revised to 1.44 Tg C yr-1, 75% higher than earlier estimates.
How to cite: Schwarzkopf, K., Bröder, L., Lattaud, J., Fritz, M., Brüchert, V., Bosse-Demers, T., Juhls, B., Overduin, P., Pellerin, A., Rudbäck, D., Tesi, T., Vonk, J., Whalen, D., and O'Regan, M.: Spatial variability of modern carbon burial in the Canadian Beaufort Sea , EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13878, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13878, 2026.
Recent observations indicate that Arctic permafrost is warming and degrading rapidly. While the processes disrupting terrestrial permafrost are now relatively well documented, the dynamics of subsea permafrost on Arctic continental shelves remain poorly constrained. In particular, the combined influence of sedimentary heterogeneities and groundwater circulation remains largely underrepresented in current models.
We present a multiphysical numerical modelling approach to better constrain the thermo-hydrological evolution of subsea permafrost in the Beaufort Sea. The model explicitly incorporates thermal conduction and advection, salinity transport, water-ice phase changes, and realistic sediment stratification (sand, silt, and clay) resulting from marine transgression and regression cycles during previous glacial-interglacial cycles. Our results show that lithology exerts a major control on the distribution of submarine permafrost. Clay-rich units, characterised by low permeability, have a drop in melting temperature depending on pore size (Gibbs–Thomson equation), leading to high spatial heterogeneity in the ice fraction, consistent with observations from recent seismic data. Conversely, sandy units, which are more permeable, can promote upward groundwater flows. Under conditions of negative seabed temperatures, these flows induce local desalination near the surface and the formation of new ice, consistent with recent field observations.
Our simulations include the last glacial–interglacial cycle (approximately 125 ka) and future warming scenarios, allowing us to evaluate both the glacial heritage and the transient response of the system to climate forcings. Comparing modelling results with drilling and seismic survey data, we provide a theoretical basis for interpreting field data. This study highlights the need to explicitly integrate sedimentary stratification and hydrogeological processes to reduce uncertainties about the future evolution of subsea permafrost and associated geological risks.
How to cite: Marguin, V., Fabien-Ouellet, G., and J. duchesne, M.: Pore size heterogeneity and groundwater flow as key factors contributing to subsea permafrost change in the Beaufort Sea, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13826, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13826, 2026.
A multipronged, 12-year study has revealed a complex, submarine morphology dotted with pingos which are continually changing due to ongoing freezing and thawing of brackish groundwater seeping up from buried ancient permafrost. Multibeam mapping surveys on both sides of the Mackenzie Trough in the Canadian Beaufort Sea were repeated in 2025, 8 and 12 years after the initial mapping surveys. Differencing 1-m-scale bathymetry grids collected using Autonomous Underwater Vehicles reveals the tops of pingos experience up to 1.5 m of upwards growth between surveys, documenting of upwards growth approaching 20 cm per year of submarine pingos for the first time. Up to 5 m of down drops were also observed on the crest of some submarine pingos. Areas that experience 1.5 m of growth are less than 10 m from areas that experienced 2.0 m of down drops. Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) based low altitude surveys using stereo cameras, multibeam, a laser scanner, and vision-based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping navigation mapped sections of this dynamic morphology at sub-cm resolution providing extraordinary detail on the on-going seafloor deformation associated with submarine permafrost. An ice layer exposed in the wall of an <8-year-old crater on the top of a pingo was sampled using a ROV-deployed drill. This ice sample and gravity cores show that segregated ice and ice bounded sediment exist at and just beneath the seafloor on these uplifted structures. Down-core freshening of pore waters from sediment cores taken on the tops of features also confirms that brackish water exists near the seafloor at these sites. ROV measurements show that the bottom water temperatures are <-1° C. At this temperature, fluctuating temperature and salinity of seeping brackish ground waters causes their freezing and thawing and results in the crest of ice cored pingos both growing and collapsing. This latest work broadens the known extent of active submarine permafrost deformation to include submarine pingos on the Arctic shelf. The on-going upwards growth and seafloor collapse at submarine groundwater seeps result in churning-up the seafloor and show that submarine permafrost formation represents an unanticipated geohazard threat to submarine infrastructure.
How to cite: Paull, C., Toni, G., Caress, D., Micallef, A., Hong, J. K., Duchesne, M., Lundsten, E., Rodríguez-Martínez, S., Gwiazda, R., Paduan, J., Brake, V., Kim, J.-H., and Kang, S.-G.: Churning of the seafloor: On-going growth and collapse of ice cored submarine pingos, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-15147, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-15147, 2026.
Arctic permafrost has been identified as a critical element in the global climate system, since it stores a vast amount of carbon that is at high risk of being released under climate change. The feedbacks between permafrost carbon and climate change are moderated by complex interactions between physical, hydrological, biogeochemical, and ecological processes. Many of these are not well understood to date, and therefore also only rudimentarily represented in current Earth System Models (ESMs).
The Q-ARCTIC project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) follows a synergetic approach by combining remote sensing and local-scale observations with modeling on scales from a few meters to hundreds of kilometers. The primary objective of Q-ARCTIC is to close the gap between process scales and the much coarser grid resolution of Earth System Models (ESMs), with a particular focus on the net effect of disturbance processes and associated changes in hydrology on the pan-Arctic scale. To close this gap, we developed new ESM modules representing subgrid through stochastic parameterizations, trained and evaluated with high-resolution remote sensing data and site-level observations.
We will present novel results from in-situ experiments that quantify carbon fluxes and environmental response functions at patch-level within heterogeneous Arctic ecosystems, resulting in optimized strategies to integrate data streams for upscaling. Satellite remote sensing products investigate fine scale (few meters) patterns in Arctic landscapes that are undergoing modifications linked to climate change, including e.g. InSAR data to constrain ground ice content, and related subsidence patterns. Targets investigated include for example sinking surfaces, wetness gradients in heterogeneous landscapes, and drained lake basins. Assimilation of these new datasets supported the development of new ESM model components that successfully capture the statistics of small-scale features, including e.g. lateral connections between hydrologic landscape elements across scales, or thermokarst lake dynamics. Our results demonstrate that the ability to project the response of the high-latitude water, energy and carbon cycles to rising global temperatures may strongly depend on the ability to adequately represent the soil hydrology and disturbance effects in permafrost affected regions.
How to cite: Göckede, M., Bartsch, A., Brovkin, V., and Heimann, M. and the Q-Arctic Team: Q-Arctic: synergetic observations and modeling of pan-Arctic interactions between hydrology, disturbance and carbon cycle processes, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13537, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13537, 2026.
Geographical and ecological research of Arctic tundra requires a clear definition of the biome boundaries. A commonly used dataset for the Arctic is the tundra biome boundary mapped by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Mapping Project (CAVM, 2003). Given recent advances in satellite-image resolution and data availability, in the age of the rapidly changing Arctic climate this previously established delineation needs to be re-evaluated and, where necessary, updated. An updated boundary can support applications such as Arctic climate modelling and assessments of potential disturbances in permafrost rich regions.
A recently developed landcover dataset was investigated for this study. The Circumpolar Landcover Unit (CALU) Database provides highly detailed landcover information with a spatial resolution of 10 meters and consists of 23 thematic units, including 12 units representing tundra but also 3 forest classes. The used retrieval scheme of landcover units employed provides an unprecedented level of detail. The landcover units have been derived by fusion of satellite data using Sentinel-1 (synthetic aperture radar) and Sentinel-2 (multispectral). These units reflect gradients in moisture and vegetation structure. The available spatial detail of CALU has been already shown to provide the means to assess the complexity of lowland permafrost regions.
The original CALU database of version 1.0 covered the Arctic within the CAVM extent only. The latest version 2.0 partially extends further south, providing additional detail within the transition zone for many areas.
The aim of this study was to assess the southern boundary of the CAVM and to identify regions where further developments of the CALU dataset may aid to establish a new boundary. Spatial statistics were collected within selected buffer areas of the CAVM boundary. In addition, longitudinal zones were generated to test whether forest-related CALU classes systematically peak south of the currently mapped boundary.
Based on these statistics, in regions such as Alaska and the European part of Russia, the CAVM boundary generally corresponds well with CALU, with forest-related classes mostly dominating within the buffer area. In parts of Siberia and Canada, however, shrub-tundra classes are more prevalent, while forest-related classes occur farther south. This mismatch may reflect regional differences in vegetation structure and terrain-driven zonation, suggesting that a single latitudinal boundary product may not capture local transitions equally well everywhere.
Preliminary results indicate that in several regions the CALU database should be extended further south, because current coverage does not fully include forest-related classes. This limitation affects the use of CALU for the tundra-boreal biome boundary evaluation and for applications that require a consistent representation of tundra–taiga transitions.
CALU: Bartsch, A., Khairullin, R., Efimova, A., Widhalm, B., Muri, X., von Baeckmann, C., Bergstedt, H., Ermokhina, K., Hugelius, G., Heim, B., Leibman, M., & Gruber, C. (2024). Circumarctic Landcover Units (2.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14235736
How to cite: Khairullin, R., Bartsch, A., and Heim, B.: Assessing the tundra-boreal transition zone with Sentinel-1/2–derived landcover data, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18289, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18289, 2026.
The Arctic permafrost is warming widely, and the circumpolar region is heating up four times faster than the global average. Common features of permafrost landscapes are drained lake basins (DLBs) which play an important role for the geomorphological, hydrological and the ecological development of those landscapes. In addition, rivers transport significant amounts of freshwater, dissolved organic carbon, and other materials into the Arctic Ocean. The impact of close-by streams for DLB drainage and refilling events needs to be quantified.
Here, we focus on DLBs and their connections to river floodplains on the Yamal Peninsula in northern Siberia, a region underlain by both discontinuous and continuous permafrost and covered with tundra vegetation, thaw lakes, and wetlands. For this study, we investigated manually selected DLBs using DEM derivatives. The lakes represent a North-South climatic gradient and different drained lake basin development stages. DEM derivatives are also used to represent related small-scale landscape features in climate models. The utility of metrics based on the Copernicus DEM, which were recently implemented in the ICON-Land model, was assessed. Potential floodplain linkage could be identified in many cases, leading also to diverting patterns of landcover evolution after drainage.
The results provide a foundation for further analysis of lakes and their connections to streams, which play a role in the wetting and drying processes and subsequent impacts on the carbon cycle across the Arctic.
How to cite: von Baeckmann, C., Bartsch, A., Bergstedt, H., Widhalm, B., Khairullin, R., Stacke, T., and De Vrese, P.: Differentiation of Drained Lake Basin Types considering river floodplains, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16924, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16924, 2026.
Identifying soil moisture in permafrost regions is crucial for various applications, yet it remains challenging with standard remote sensing techniques due to the high heterogeneity of the landscape. Soil wetness plays a significant role in these regions, facilitating processes such as the upscaling of carbon fluxes. Seasonal thawing and freezing of near-surface soil, in the presence of ice, cause subsidence-heave cycles with magnitudes reaching centimeters.
A recent study with focus on central Yamal showed that Sentinel-1 InSAR detects pronounced subsidence in areas with higher soil moisture using the relationship between thawing degree days and surface deformation. In this study, we extended the analysis to multiple site-specific study areas across the entire Arctic, and its performance is evaluated against other commonly used remote sensing global soil moisture products (CCI, SMAP, SMOS), reanalysis (ERA5) and in-situ measurements. Soil moisture data from various field campaigns were compiled via data mining for this purpose. Furthermore, a landscape-scale analysis is conducted to quantify biases across various terrain types and to identify wetness gradients across the study sites.
It can be demonstrated that the InSAR approach offers a valuable tool for distinguishing wet and dry landscape features, which is significant for monitoring permafrost degradation in Arctic lowland regions.
How to cite: Radha Krishnan, S. R., Bartsch, A., and Widhalm, B.: Assessment of an InSAR based soil moisture index across Arctic permafrost regions., EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13504, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13504, 2026.
Infrastructure in the Arctic is expanding rapidly due to ongoing industrial development, yet it faces increasing challenges as climate warming accelerates permafrost degradation and leads to or increases ground instability. Satellite records support the identification of infrastructure developments. Remote sensing based ground surface deformation monitoring is another key component for managing permafrost-related infrastructure risks and supporting community planning.
To systematically map human-impacted Arctic coastal regions, the Sentinel-1/2 derived Arctic Coastal Human Impact (SACHI) dataset was developed. In this study, we updated this dataset for selected Arctic settlements in western Greenland using newly acquired imagery that captures recently constructed man-made features. Additionally, we investigated the potential of fully polarimetric PALSAR-3 L-band SAR data to complement the established Sentinel-1 (C-band)/ Sentinel-2 workflow, aiming to improve the detection and characterization of infrastructure. The scheme is based on fusion of two machine learning techniques, Gradient boosting machines (GBM) and a deep learning approach using convolutional neural networks. Specifically, the added value for building detection as part of the GBM analyses can been shown. Eventually we combined the settlement information with long-term vertical ground deformation for selected settlements.
How to cite: Widhalm, B., Bartsch, A., Khairullin, R., von Baeckmann, C., Tanguy, R., De Ville, T., and Ingeman-Nielsen, T.: Satellite based monitoring of Arctic settlements on thawing ground, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16840, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16840, 2026.
Permafrost ground deformation is a disturbance process with high spatial heterogeneity. With the advent of InSAR (Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar) monitoring of permafrost ground deformation at meter scale, statistical approaches are becoming crucial for revealing characteristics hidden in large datasets.
For this study, we use ALOS PALSAR-2 data, covering four regions and at least three years each: Central North Slope, Mackenzie River Delta, Noatak River Basin and Yamal. Building on the approach from our previous study, we represent all meter-scale deformation data in km-scale grids using data distributions. The variance of cumulative annual permafrost ground deformation shows an approximately linear relationship with the number of years in all regions. Based on this linearity, we establish a simple stochastic model for permafrost ground deformation. With this conceptual model, the probability of a region reaching a given threshold (cm) of subsidence within a specified number of years can be derived.
We calculate Pearson correlation coefficients between ERA climate forcings and statistical moments of the ground-deformation distributions at 10 km resolution. Climatic and topographic factors at 10 km show substantially higher correlations with deformation variance and kurtosis than with mean deformation. We hypothesize that climatic impacts influence permafrost ground deformation not primarily deterministically, but through the volatility term of the stochastic process.
In addition, we quantify the intrinsic temporal memory of permafrost ground deformation using an ensemble approach. Due to the limited time-series length, we calculate the lag-1 and lag-2 correlation coefficients by treating deformation data within the same environment condition as an ensemble in a fixed state.
This study demonstrates statistical features present in meter-scale InSAR data. Our results highlight the perspective of treating permafrost ground deformation as a stochastic process and demonstrate a potential pathway for linking km-scale climate forcings to meter-scale permafrost disturbances.
How to cite: Liu, Z., Widhalm, B., Bartsch, A., Kleinen, T., and Brovkin, V.: Stochastic Modeling of Permafrost Ground Deformation Based on High-resolution InSAR Data, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-10543, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-10543, 2026.
The objective of the European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative (ESA CCI+) Permafrost project is to develop and deliver permafrost data as Essential Climate Variable (ECV) products primarily derived from satellite measurements (https://climate.esa.int/en/projects/permafrost/). The required associated parameters by the Global Climate Observation System (GCOS) for the ECV Permafrost are 'permafrost temperature' and 'active layer thickness'. Further on, permafrost extent (as a derivative of ground temperature) needs to be quantified.
Algorithms were identified which can provide these parameters of interest by ingesting a set of global satellite data products (land surface temperature and land cover), re-analysis data (snow-water equivalent) and subsurface stratigraphy in a permafrost model scheme that computes the ground thermal regime.
The resulting datasets are annual products of mean annual ground temperature (MAGT) at different depths, active layer thickness (maximum thaw depth) and permafrost fraction (based on MAGT at 2m depth) from 1997 to 2023.
The estimated reduction of permafrost extent in the timeframe from 1997 to 2023 was 8%. The mean annual ground temperature at 2m depth has increased from approximately -2°C to -1°C (within maximum permafrost extent of the observation period). The thickness of the active layer has increased by 30 cm on average. Distinct regional differences can be observed which will be presented.
How to cite: Gruber, C., Bartsch, A., Westermann, S., and Strozzi, T.: Northern hemisphere permafrost loss documented through ESA CCI+ Permafrost climate data records, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16782, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16782, 2026.
The Hamlet of Tuktoyaktuk in the Canadian Arctic faces forced relocation due to accelerating ground ice thaw and coastal erosion, a crisis that could create Canada’s first climate refugees. The stability of the massive ground ice beneath Tuktoyaktuk Island’s newly installed shoreline defences is a critical unknown and could impact the landscape and sensitive harbour ecosystem for years to come. Our research answers the scientific question: how effective is modern climate adaptation infrastructure on the permafrost it is designed to protect?
Our expeditions will pioneer a novel, community-focused methodology to address this urgent problem, moving beyond traditional intrusive surveys. In August 2025, we conducted a pilot study to confirm the viability of our geophysical methods. In March 2026, we will conduct the first comprehensive Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) surveys in Tuktoyaktuk since the defences were built. In partnership with the community, we will deploy the GPR from a snowmobile and venture onto the sea ice, to create high-resolution 3D maps of massive ground ice, identify areas of weakness, and track thaw by comparing our findings to a six-year historical dataset. Using new interactive tools in GPR enabling in situ processing and time-lapsing, we will develop our findings into a community-scale hazard map for the Hamlet Council which will inform adaptation and land use planning.
How to cite: Macpherson, L., Warren, C., Martin, J., and Lim, M.: Echoes from the ice: assessing the effectiveness of coastal defences on underlying permafrost, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-1097, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-1097, 2026.
Continued climate warming directly impacts regional hydrological systems through increased permafrost degradation and talik expansion. These disturbances alter surface and groundwater flow paths, increasing uncertainty in hydrological responses to future climate change. Previous research has observed groundwater flow in permafrost regions, either through suprapermafrost taliks or subpermafrost aquifers; however, a near-surface geophysical approach to quantify talik volume is required. We used Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) data collected in March 2025 to estimate talik thickness below the Kuparuk River on the North Slope of Alaska. The Kuparuk River extends from the Brooks Range to the Beaufort Sea, making this region imperative for understanding the impacts of permafrost degradation on hydrological systems within the Arctic tundra. GPR measurements were collected using a snowmobile pulling a 160 MHz antenna, reaching a depth of investigation up to ~30m. Preliminary GPR results suggest a talik layer below the river, which is hypothesized to facilitate groundwater flow during the winter. GPR talik thicknesses will be used to create a conceptual hydrogeological model of this complex river-talik system. This work provides a better understanding of the impacts of permafrost degradation on groundwater flow in an increasing climate warming.
How to cite: Lee, S., Rangel, R. C., Glass, T. W., Armstrong, A., Jones, B. M., and Tape, K. D.: Using Ground Penetrating Radar to Estimate Talik Thickness Below the Kuparuk River, Arctic Alaska, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-13606, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-13606, 2026.
The Arctic is warming at four times the rate of the global average which threatens the existence of permafrost. Independent of anthropogenic climate change, both degradation and aggradation of permafrost in the Arctic frequently occurs below lake and drained lake basin (L-DLB) systems. If global climate change continues at the current rate, we expect that permafrost degradation would accelerate during the extant lake phase, and that permafrost aggradation would slow and even cease if mean air temperatures begin to approach or exceed 0⁰C. Also, L-DLB systems are ubiquitous in Arctic permafrost regions, occupying between 20 - 33% of the total land of the northern circumpolar permafrost region with some areas, like the Arctic Coastal Plain of Alaska (ACPA), exceeding 80% coverage. Therefore, it is vital to study L-DLB systems to understand the dynamics of permafrost regimes in the context of a warming climate. Currently, there are limited studies that have measured permafrost dynamics below L-DLBs, almost no studies have measured aggradation immediately after lake drainage, and to our knowledge there are no designated sites to monitor aggradation rates under naturally occurring DLBs. In 2020, we were informed by local and traditional knowledge experts from Utqiagvik that a lake drainage event was likely to occur at the Bugeye Lakes Complex in the ACPA. Over the next two years, we closely observed a cascade lake drainage event that partially or completely drained all four Bugeye Lakes. This was the first time a naturally occurring cascade drainage event has been captured in real time which has provided a unique opportunity to establish a monitoring site for permafrost aggradation. To estimate talik thicknesses and aggradation rates after lake drainage, we have acquired transient electromagnetic (TEM) measurements at Bugeye Lakes in April 2022 and will repeat TEM measurements in April 2026. We have also used transient thermal models to compare with our geophysical observations. Additionally, we expect that our work will provide a framework for establishing a L-DLB monitoring site at the Bugeye Lakes Complex, which would be critical to improve our understanding of permafrost dynamics under a warmer climate regime.
How to cite: Armstrong, A., Rangel, R. C., Jones, B., Parsekian, A., Kanevskiy, M., and Ward Jones, M.: Investigating Permafrost Aggradation below a Cascading Arctic Lake Drainage using Transient Electromagnetics and Thermal Modeling, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-12792, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-12792, 2026.
Polar regions are warming about four times faster than the global average, favoring vegetation changes such as shrub expansion across Arctic tundra. Shrubification modifies the depth of the active layer, the summer-thawed layer whose magnitude affects the release of ancient organic carbon through microbial activity. In winter, snow insulates the ground from the atmosphere, but shrubs modify snowpack thermal properties and facilitate heat transfer through their branches. In summer, the relationship between shrub and ground thermal dynamics remains debated, with many interpretations focusing on shading effects by shrubs, but detailed surface energy budget studies are rare. This limits our ability to improve land surface models and quantify vegetation-permafrost feedbacks.
Here we compare summer surface energy partitioning of shrub and moss tundra in Qarlikturvik Valley on Bylot Island (73°N), Canadian High-Arctic.
From July 2024 to August 2025, we instrumented a low-shrub-dominated site and an adjacent moss-dominated site. We continuously monitored turbulent, radiative, and ground heat fluxes. We also characterized soil thermal properties and vegetation cover, and monitored snowpack thermal properties to help separate winter legacy effects from summer processes. Preliminary data show that ground temperatures are warmer annually under shrubs, with larger differences in winter. In summer, shrubs impact energy partitioning by modifying latent and sensible heat exchanges. Above the surface under the canopy, incoming shortwave radiation is attenuated. This reduced energy input is compensated by the thinner moss layer under shrubs which provides less thermal insulation and facilitates soil warming. By late summer, the active layer beneath shrubs is nearly twice as deep as at the moss site. This is mostly attributed to the winter legacy and to the lower moss insulation at our site.
This local study with a detailed dataset will contribute to improving vegetation-snow-permafrost parameterisations in land surface models and hopefully to more reliable Arctic permafrost projections.
How to cite: Tremblay, E., Domine, F., Thiboult, A., and Nadeau, D.: Permafrost and shrubification: Friends or enemies? A look at the summer energy budget of shrub tundra, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-15960, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-15960, 2026.
The Arctic is warming at an increased rate. This will lead to large-scale permafrost thaw, thereby potentially releasing significant amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through the decomposition of previously frozen organic material in the soils. To accurately gauge the impact of these emissions, it is crucial to know the emission ratio between the two most important greenhouse gases CO2 and CH4. While CO2 is projected to be the dominant gas, it is important to consider the amplified climatic forcing of CH4, which is a stronger greenhouse gas than CO2. Laboratory incubations and in situ studies have shown that the CO2:CH4 ratio is highly variable. Despite this, most land surface models use a pre-set ratio factor to simulate methanogenesis, thus making it impossible to capture the dynamics of the CO2:CH4 ratio from the start, and, in consequence, making prediction of the Arctic carbon budget more uncertain. Methanogenesis is a complicated framework of different microbial processes, most importantly the two main production pathways – acetoclastic and hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis – and fermentation, which produces the substrate for the two former processes. The inclusion of these processes into models has been studied on the small, i.e. lab to site-level, scale but this has rarely been explored on a pan-Arctic scale. Here, we augmented the JSBACH land surface model’s methane routine, which normally uses a predefined CH4 production ratio factor, by including the three aforementioned microbial processes to study the CO2:CH4 ratio on a pan-Arctic scale. We present the new model routine, show how it performs against the base model, and how the results compare to other estimates from the literature. We discuss the uncertainty of the new results and highlight the difficulties in upscaling many of the factors that influence the CO2:CH4 production ratio.
How to cite: Moser, M., Brovkin, V., and Beer, C.: A new process-based methanogenesis routine in the JSBACH land surface model – a pan-Arctic view of the CO2:CH4 ratio, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-16651, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-16651, 2026.
Climate-driven transitions in Arctic soil states, from frozen to intermediate and thawed conditions, pose significant threats to slope stability in permafrost regions. As permafrost degrades, slope structural integrity weakens, elevating landslide risk and other geohazards. This study analyzes long-term trends in soil freeze-thaw dynamics across the Arctic to identify areas vulnerable to future slope instability and inform infrastructure planning, resource management, and hazard mitigation strategies.
We utilized SMOS brightness temperature data from the CATDS dataset and SMOS L3 Freeze-Thaw State products from ESA, analyzing normalized polarization ratio (NPR) and freeze-intermediate-thaw (FT) classifications from both ascending and descending orbits. Trend detection employed two complementary approaches: the Mann-Kendall non-parametric test for monotonic trends and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural networks for capturing complex temporal patterns. Analyses were conducted at monthly and seasonal scales across individual pixels and spatial clusters (3×3, 5×5, and 7×7 pixels).
Results reveal pronounced changes clustered in northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Arctic Ocean coastal zones. These regions display heterogeneous patterns reflecting localized frost condition shifts. Northern Canada and Alaska show trends consistent with permafrost degradation driven by rising temperatures and seasonal frost variations. Siberian trends suggest accelerating permafrost thaw with implications for carbon release, ecosystem function, and infrastructure integrity. Coastal Arctic zones exhibit changes linked to sea ice retreat, coastal erosion, and permafrost-climate interactions.
This research demonstrates the value of combining statistical and artificial intelligence methods to monitor environmental change in permafrost landscapes, providing critical insights for understanding slope instability drivers in a warming Arctic.
Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme (Grant No. 101086386, EO-PERSIST).
How to cite: Vasile, M., Rautiainen, K., Holmberg, M., Vârghileanu, M., Alexandru, N., and Șandric, I.: Understanding Soil Freeze-Thaw Dynamics and Slope Instability in Arctic Regions Under Climate Change, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-19823, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-19823, 2026.
Permafrost is receding and warming globally in polar and high-altitude regions due to ongoing climate change. To better represent the role of ground ice on the long-term stability of permafrost soils, previous studies have introduced a transition zone between the seasonally freezing and thawing active layer and the permafrost layer. The transient layer, an ice-rich layer within the transition zone, is proposed to have the potential to temporarily slow down the climate change-related permafrost thaw. The ice-water phase transition absorbs heat and temporarily buffers the downward heat propagation. However, so far this layer has not received much scientific attention and its formation and degradation processes and their associated timescales remain largely unconstrained.
To determine the physical degradation processes of the transient layer as well as the involved time frame, we present a novel experimental approach to replicate the transient layer degradation under controlled laboratory conditions. The experimental setup at the GEOPS cold chamber facility consists of an acrylic glass container (approximately 80 × 40 × 40 cm, H × W × L). It is filled with fully saturated sand (d50 = 0.2 mm) or polycarbonate analog (d50 = 0.6 mm) material. The lateral boundaries of the container are insulated to minimize horizontal heat exchange, while the base of the container is kept at a constant temperature with a cryostat to represent the underlying permafrost. By cyclically varying the air temperature in the cold chamber between -30 °C and +30 °C we forced repetitive freeze-thaw cycles on the surface of the volume to simulate a permafrost system. To simulate the transient layer we have added different artificial cryostructures (ice lenses, ice veins, and dispersed ice) at the active-layer and permafrost layer interface. We varied the cryostructure type between experimental runs but kept the total ice-mass to keep the latent heat capacity constant. Then, to degrade the transient layer we increased the temperature forcing by shifting the temperature cycle upward by 3 °C. We monitored the transient layer degradation with an array of temperature sensors, a ground-penetrating radar, and photographic observations through the transparent side walls of the experimental container.
In this initial work, we show how different ice contents, spatial distributions, and cryostructure types within the transient layer protect the underlying permafrost beyond the latent-heat buffering of the ice-water phase transition alone. We highlight the importance of expanding the future use of these analog experiments to better understand and isolate the physical transient layer formation and degradation processes. This is essential in determining the transient layer evolution and its long-term implications for permafrost retreat and destabilization.
How to cite: Beck, C., Léger, E., Costard, F., Saintenoy, A., Séjourné, A., Duhayon, F., and Lasseigne, M.: Slowing down permafrost degradation: Quantifying the thermal buffer effect of the transient layer from novel large-scale laboratory experiments, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-20920, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-20920, 2026.
Thermo-erosional gullies are widespread landscape components in ice-rich Arctic permafrost regions. With accelerated climate warming and permafrost thaw, these gully networks are expected to expand. This not only accelerates in-situ ground-ice loss but also rearranges drainage pathways, which can have far-reaching consequences, modifying local hydrology as well as sediment, nutrient, carbon, and contaminant fluxes and impacting ecosystems at catchment scale.
The evolution of thermo-erosional gully systems following initiation is dynamic and likely influenced by incision-dependent snowdrift and moisture redistribution that affect the thermal conditions. To investigate the role of these factors and their consequences for the permafrost state within the gully and the surrounding uplands, we set up a simplified thermo-erosional gully model using the permafrost model CryoGridLite, including conductive heat transfer, soil water phase change, a dynamic snow scheme and simplified water redistribution. The model was parameterised and validated to represent two contrasting gully sites in western Alaska, using field data. The first site on the Baldwin Peninsula (BAP-B) represents a deeply incised coastal gully, while the second site on the Seward Peninsula (CSP-F) represents a shallow gully connected to a drained thermokarst pond basin. The data included topographical measurements with drone-based measurements of terrain elevation and DGPS measurements of elevation transects for the morphological setup and snow depth measurements along cross-gully transects to constrain asymmetric snowdrift. For additional parametrisation and validation, we used various in-situ measurements, including temperature depth-profiles and thaw depth from several field campaigns (2022 to 2025), as well as continuously measured temperatures along gully cross-transects (upland, slope gully base) at different depths (surface, 0.2 to 0.3m, and 1 m). Based on the validated model setups for both sites, we modified morphology and snowdrift constraints to compare temperature dynamics and permafrost state along the gully cross section under different setup scenarios.
Our modelling scenarios highlighted the importance of snowdrift for talik formation within the gully. Furthermore, the model simulations suggest increased seasonal thaw depths on the slopes, which may result in enhanced mass wasting and erosion-driven gully widening and, together with directional snowdrift, lead to asymmetric gully development. Finally, we conclude that such storyline simulations can provide valuable insights into potential future development trajectories under climate change and address open questions such as the role of thermo-erosional gullies in permafrost landscapes. This includes whether gullies stabilise upland permafrost through improved drainage or whether related topographical changes enhance snow accumulation, thereby accelerating permafrost degradation.
How to cite: Inauen, C., Langer, M., Ohl, S., Veremeeva, A., Morgenstern, A., Rettelbach, T., Ghosh, S., Opel, T., Palacin-Lizarbe, C., Seemann, F., Barth, S., Baysinger, M., Hanna, C., Luebker, T., Runge, A., Nitze, I., Hajnsek, I., and Grosse, G.: Setting up and parametrising a thermo-erosional gully model to study the impact of morphology and snowdrift on development trajectories, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-21908, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-21908, 2026.
