Permafrost Weakening as a Potential Impact of Climatic Warming
Publication: Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 24, Issue 1
Abstract
The warming weakening of permafrost strength as a result of different scenarios of climatic warming ranging from 0 to over the next century has been predicted using a one-dimensional geothermal model. These predictions are based on the results of an intensive geotechnical program carried out in a warm ice-rich silty permafrost in Northern Quebec. The dependency of permafrost strength on temperature was assessed from cone penetration tests performed at regular intervals over a 2-month period during the seasonal warming of the upper permafrost layer in spring 2000. A thermomechanical subroutine taking into account this dependency has been then added to the one-dimensional geothermal model for the simulation of the weakening of permafrost strength as it warms. A warming rate of over the next century leads on a slow decrease in permafrost strength corresponding to a relative loss of strength of about 50%. For a warming rate of , the strength weakening is much more pronounced and almost reaches the unfrozen state at the end of the warming period corresponding to a relative loss of 98%.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks are addressed to Christian Boyaud and Michaël Dubé for their help in the field, to Claude Tremblay for his logistic support in Northern Quebec, and also to Pierre Therrien for his help in software programing. We would like to underline the friendly support of the Inuit community of Umiujaq, and more specifically of Willie Kumarluk, in our research work in the field. Support for this research has been provided by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada operating and equipment grant to R. Fortier.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Cold Regions Engineering
Volume 24 • Issue 1 • March 2010
Pages: 1 - 18
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Jun 9, 2005
Accepted: Oct 21, 2009
Published online: Feb 12, 2010
Published in print: Mar 2010
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