Permafrost ecosystems entangled with human life in Mongolia- evaluating the impact of land use change in a warming climate

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2020

End date

12/31/2024

Budget

1,474,893 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

The Permafrost4Life project investigates permafrost and climate in Mongolia with a combination of field measurements, remote sensing and numerical modeling. In particular, the project investigates the complex relationship between permafrost, ecosystems and the traditional herder lifestyle that is of great importance for the Mongolian society even today. The southern boundary of the Eurasian permafrost runs straight across Mongolia, and climate change has already led to a significant reduction of the permafrost area in the last decades. In a study currently under review, the project team has evaluated air temperature measurements since the 1950s from dozens of meteorological stations throughout Mongolia which clearly show that climate conditions have become much less favorable for permafrost occurrence. As 2020, the year 2021 was again dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic which has unfortunately prevented travel between Mongolia and Norway up to now. To stop the spread of Covid-19, the Mongolian government suspended all international travel to and from Mongolia. This helped to keep infection rates extremely low until April 2021 when an outbreak of the then new delta variant occurred. Since April, the numbers have risen continuously, and at present Mongolia is one of the countries with the world-wide highest Covid-19 infection rates, so that travel restrictions will likely not be lifted in the near future. Despite this extremely difficult situation, the Mongolian Permafrost4Life team has managed to conduct several field campaigns in spring and summer 2021. They in particular established field sites in the region around lake Hovsgol and in the Henti mountains, where the effects of grazing and forestry on ground temperatures and permafrost can be studied. The Norwegian project team is now fully assembled and has concentrated on establishing models for permafrost and ecosystem development in Mongolia. In fall 2020, we have released the CryoGrid permafrost model as an open-source community tool so that joint model development can be coordinated among permafrost researchers. We have subsequently worked with international partners to improve CryoGrid so that it can now simulate how a forest cover influences the thermal regime of permafrost. Collaboration between Norwegian and Mongolian researchers continues through remote meetings and workshops. We have in particular organized a remote workshop to train researchers and students in Mongolia in CryoGrid, so that they are now able to conduct permafrost simulations themselves and contribute to the future development of the community model.