Permafrost warming has the potential to amplify global climate change, because when frozen sediments thaw it unlocks soil organic carbon. Yet to date, no globally consistent assessment of permafrost temperature change has been compiled. Here we use a global data set of permafrost temperature time series from the Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost to evaluate temperature change across permafrost regions for the period since the International Polar Year (2007–2009). During the reference decade between 2007 and 2016, ground temperature near the depth of zero annual amplitude in the continuous permafrost zone increased by 0.39 ± 0.15 °C. Over the same period, discontinuous permafrost warmed by 0.20 ± 0.10 °C. Permafrost in mountains warmed by 0.19 ± 0.05 °C and in Antarctica by 0.37 ± 0.10 °C. Globally, permafrost temperature increased by 0.29 ± 0.12 °C. The observed trend follows the Arctic amplification of air temperature increase in the Northern Hemisphere. In the discontinuous zone, however, ground warming occurred due to increased snow thickness while air temperature remained statistically unchanged.

The permafrost monitoring network in the polar regions of the Northern Hemisphere was enhanced during the International Polar Year (IPY), and new information on permafrost thermal state was collected for regions where there was little available. This augmented monitoring network is an important legacy of the IPY, as is the updated baseline of current permafrost conditions against which future changes may be measured. Within the Northern Hemisphere polar region, ground temperatures are currently being measured in about 575 boreholes in North America, the Nordic region and Russia. These show that in the discontinuous permafrost zone, permafrost temperatures fall within a narrow range, with the mean annual ground temperature (MAGT) at most sites being higher than −2°C. A greater range in MAGT is present within the continuous permafrost zone, from above −1°C at some locations to as low as −15°C. The latest results indicate that the permafrost warming which started two to three decades ago has generally continued into the IPY period. Warming rates are much smaller for permafrost already at temperatures close to 0°C compared with colder permafrost, especially for ice‐rich permafrost where latent heat effects dominate the ground thermal regime. Colder permafrost sites are warming more rapidly. This improved knowledge about the permafrost thermal state and its dynamics is important for multidisciplinary polar research, but also for many of the 4 million people living in the Arctic. In particular, this knowledge is required for designing effective adaptation strategies for the local communities under warmer climatic conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Climate warming in regions of ice‐rich permafrost can result in widespread thermokarst development, which reconfigures the landscape and damages infrastructure. We present multisite time series observations which couple ground temperature measurements with thermokarst development in a region of very cold permafrost. In the Canadian High Arctic between 2003 and 2016, a series of anomalously warm summers caused mean thawing indices to be 150–240% above the 1979–2000 normal resulting in up to 90 cm of subsidence over the 12‐year observation period. Our data illustrate that despite low mean annual ground temperatures, very cold permafrost (<−10 °C) with massive ground ice close to the surface is highly vulnerable to rapid permafrost degradation and thermokarst development. We suggest that this is due to little thermal buffering from soil organic layers and near‐surface vegetation, and the presence of near‐surface ground ice. Observed maximum thaw depths at our sites are already exceeding those projected to occur by 2090 under representative concentration pathway version 4.5.

The Global Terrestrial Network for Permafrost (GTN-P) provides the first dynamic database associated with the Thermal State of Permafrost (TSP) and the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) programs, which extensively collect permafrost temperature and active layer thickness (ALT) data from Arctic, Antarctic and mountain permafrost regions. The purpose of GTN-P is to establish an early warning system for the consequences of climate change in permafrost regions and to provide standardized thermal permafrost data to global models. In this paper we introduce the GTN-P database and perform statistical analysis of the GTN-P metadata to identify and quantify the spatial gaps in the site distribution in relation to climate-effective environmental parameters. We describe the concept and structure of the data management system in regard to user operability, data transfer and data policy. We outline data sources and data processing including quality control strategies based on national correspondents. Assessment of the metadata and data quality reveals 63 % metadata completeness at active layer sites and 50 % metadata completeness for boreholes. Voronoi tessellation analysis on the spatial sample distribution of boreholes and active layer measurement sites quantifies the distribution inhomogeneity and provides a potential method to locate additional permafrost research sites by improving the representativeness of thermal monitoring across areas underlain by permafrost. The depth distribution of the boreholes reveals that 73 % are shallower than 25 m and 27 % are deeper, reaching a maximum of 1 km depth. Comparison of the GTN-P site distribution with permafrost zones, soil organic carbon contents and vegetation types exhibits different local to regional monitoring situations, which are illustrated with maps. Preferential slope orientation at the sites most likely causes a bias in the temperature monitoring and should be taken into account when using the data for global models. The distribution of GTN-P sites within zones of projected temperature change show a high representation of areas with smaller expected temperature rise but a lower number of sites within Arctic areas where climate models project extreme temperature increase. GTN-P metadata used in this paper are available at doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.842821.

Thawing and freezing of Arctic soils is affected by many factors, with air temperature, vegetation, snow accumulation, and soil physical properties and soil moisture among the most important. We enhance the Geophysical Institute Permafrost Laboratory model and develop several high spatial resolution scenarios of changes in permafrost characteristics in the Alaskan Arctic in response to observed and projected climate change. The ground thermal properties of surface vegetation and soil column are upscaled using the Ecosystems of Northern Alaska map and temperature data assimilation from the shallow boreholes across the Alaska North Slope. Soil temperature dynamics are simulated by solving the 1‐D nonlinear heat equation with phase change, while the snow temperature and thickness are simulated by considering the snow accumulation, compaction, and melting processes. The model is verified by comparing with available active layer thickness at the Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring sites, permafrost temperature, and snow depth records from existing permafrost observatories in the North Slope region.