The presence of ice in soil dramatically alters soil hydrologic and thermal properties. Despite this important role, many recent studies show that explicitly including the hydrologic effects of soil ice in land surface models degrades the simulation of runoff in cold regions. This paper addresses this dilemma by employing the Community Land Model version 2.0 (CLM2.0) developed at the National C...

The freezing front depth ( zff ) of annual freeze- thaw cycles is critical for monitoring the dynamics cryosphere under climate change because a sensitive indicator heat balance over atmosphere-cryosphere interface. Meanwhile, although it very promising acquiring global soil moisture distributi...

Nonsorted circles are relatively barren patterned-ground features common in most arctic tundra regions. We studied how vegetation changes on nonsorted circles might affect cryogenic processes, which is of relevance as arctic vegetation responds to climate change. Twenty-eight circles at a moist nonacidic tundra site in northern Alaska received one of four treatments: (a) vegetation removal; (b)...

2,4,6-Trinitrotoluene (TNT)-contaminated soil was remediated by an anaerobic/aerobic slurry process. Prior to treatment, the soil was spiked with [14C]-TNT. Leaching experiments were carried out with the decontaminated soil to determine the degree of binding of the radiolabel under a variety of conditions. To simulate natural degradation processes of soil organic matter, each of three columns w...

Seasonal cycles of freezing and thawing influence surface energy and water cycle fluxes. Specifically, soil frost can lead to the reduction in infiltration and an increase in runoff response, resulting in a greater potential for soil erosion. An increase in the number of soil freeze–thaw cycles may reduce soil compaction, which could affect various hydrologic processes. In this study, the autho...

Abstract Permafrost and seasonally frozen ground are important surface features in highlatitudes. Because of this, a soil-frost parameterization was added to the Penn State University/NCAR mesoscale meteorological model MM5 in combination with the well validated hydro-thermodynamic soil vegetation scheme HTSVS, which takes into account among other things soil freezing and thawing. Reanalysis of...

One-third of the Earth’s land surface experiences seasonal freezing and thawing. Freezing-thawing transitions strongly impact land-atmosphere interactions and, thus, also lower atmosphere above such areas. Observations two L-band satellites, Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Ocean Salinity (SMOS) missions, provide flags that characterize surfaces as either frozen or not frozen. However, both ...

[1] The terrestrial Arctic water cycle is strongly influenced by the presence of permafrost, which is at present degrading as a result of warming. In this study, we describe improvements to the representation of processes in the pan-Arctic Water Balance Model (PWBM) and evaluate simulated soil temperature at four sites in Alaska and active-layer thickness (ALT) across the pan-Arctic drainage ba...