Soil thermal properties during freeze–thaw dynamics as function of variable organic carbon and grain size distribution

Abstract

Permafrost regions are experiencing increasing air temperatures, accelerating the thawing process, and thickening the active layer in summer. This can accelerate the release of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere from the organic carbon stored in the permafrost. The long‐term thawing rates of permafrost below the active layer are governed by the soil thermal properties, the heat capacity, and thermal conductivity, which vary due to differences in grain sizes and distribution and organic matter content. Using nine column experiments comprised of fully saturated synthetic permafrost samples exposed to freeze–thaw cycles, the relative contributions of a range of soil grain sizes and organic matter contents on the soil thermal properties were investigated. The columns were subjected to a freeze and thaw cycle while soil temperatures were recorded in profiles. To infer the thermal properties from these experimental data, a numerical heat transfer model was used. The best fit between the observations and a batch of 5544 numerical models was used to find optimum values for permafrost thermal properties. The optimized heat capacity varied between 500 and 650 (J/m3 K) and thermal conductivity between 2.45 and 3.55 (W/m K). These optimized parameters were subsequently used to model a 100‐year permafrost active layer thaw scenario under warming air temperatures. Variations in the optimized thermal properties resulted in a time difference in thawing depth of 10–15 years and thawing depths varied between 9 and 10 m between the different optimized thermal properties at the end of the 100‐year scenario.