Arctic permafrost thermal variability across an environmental gradient from continuous to sporadic permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere – a PAGE21 compilation

Permafrost temperatures have been recorded in dominant ice-rich periglacial landforms in five different sites of continuous and sporadic permafrost for improved understanding of physical permafrost processes, and for the comparison of these processes between sites. Additionally active layer thickness from the official CALM data from each of the same sites have been compared. The landscapes vary from high-relief mountainous terrain to deltaic and floodplain lowlands, and are thus characteristic of large parts of the permafrost landscapes of the Northern Hemisphere, representing the landscape variability. Significant variation is seen in terms of the sensitivity towards climate change between the five site, ranging from relatively cold -8˚C permafrost in Siberia but with very large thermal conductivity over warm -4˚C permafrost in Svalbard with normal thermal conductivity, to permafrost warmer than -1˚C in Abisko. Thickest active layer is found in Svalbard, and thinnest in Kytalik in Siberia, but with the peat of the sporadic permafrost in Abisko at an intermediate level