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The mapping depicts a first-order estimate of the combined volumetric percentage of excess ice in the top 5 m of permafrost from segregated, wedge, and relict ice. The estimates for the three ice types are based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019), and informed by available published values of ground ice content and expert knowledge. The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.
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Ground ice melt caused by climate-induced permafrost degradation may trigger significant ecological change, damage infrastructure, and alter biogeochemical cycles. The fundamental ground ice mapping for Canada is now >20 years old and does not include significant new insights gained from recent field- and remote-sensing-based studies. New modelling incorporating paleogeography is presented in this paper to depict the distribution of three ground ice types (relict ice, segregated ice, and wedge ice) in northern Canada. The modelling uses an expert-system approach in a geographic information system (GIS), founded in conceptual principles gained from empirically based research, to predict ground ice abundance in near-surface permafrost. Datasets of surficial geology, deglaciation, paleovegetation, glacial lake and marine limits, and modern permafrost distribution allow representations in the models of paleoclimatic shifts, tree line migration, marine and glacial lake inundation, and terrestrial emergence, and their effect on ground ice abundance. The model outputs are generally consistent with field observations, indicating abundant relict ice in the western Arctic, where it has remained preserved since deglaciation in thick glacigenic sediments in continuous permafrost. Segregated ice is widely distributed in fine-grained deposits, occurring in the highest abundance in glacial lake and marine sediments. The modelled abundance of wedge ice largely reflects the exposure time of terrain to low air temperatures in tundra environments following deglaciation or marine/glacial lake inundation and is thus highest in the western Arctic. Holocene environmental changes result in reduced ice abundance where the tree line advanced during warmer periods. Published observations of thaw slumps and massive ice exposures, segregated ice and associated landforms, and ice wedges allow a favourable preliminary assessment of the models, and the results are generally comparable with the previous ground ice mapping for Canada. However, the model outputs are more spatially explicit and better reflect observed ground ice conditions in many regions. Synthetic modelling products that incorporated the previous ground ice information may therefore include inaccuracies. The presented modelling approach is a significant advance in permafrost mapping, but additional field observations and volumetric ice estimates from more areas in Canada are required to improve calibration and validation of small-scale ground ice modelling. The ground ice maps from this paper are available in the supplement in GeoTIFF format.
Detailed information about the methods can be found in the publication to which this dataset is a supplement.
In order to use these data, you must cite this data set with the following citation:
O'Neill, H. B., Wolfe, S. A., and Duchesne, C.: New ground ice maps for Canada using a paleogeographic modelling approach, The Cryosphere, 13, 753–773, doi:10.18739/A22V2C974, 2019
Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
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The mapping depicts the relative abundance of relict (buried glacier) ice preserved in upper permafrost at a national scale. The mapping is based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019). The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.
The mapping depicts the relative abundance of segregated ice in upper permafrost at a national scale. The mapping is based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019). The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.
This dataset contains information on cryostratigraphy and ground-ice content of the upper permafrost, which was based on the results of 22 field trips in 2018-2023. Field studies were performed in various regions of Alaska and Canadian Arctic including the following study areas: Utqiagvik (former Barrow), Teshekpuk Lake, Prudhoe Bay Oilfield, Toolik Lake, Jago River, Itkillik River, Anaktuvuk River, Fairbanks, Dalton Highway, Glennallen, Point Lay, Bylot Island (Canada), Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk (Canada). Cryostratigraphy of the upper permafrost was studied mainly in coastal and riverbank exposures and frozen cores obtained from drilling with the SIPRE corer. Permafrost exposures and cores were described and photographed in the field, and obtained soil samples were delivered to the University of Alaska Fairbanks for additional descriptions and analyses. Ice contents of frozen soils (including gravimetric and volumetric moisture content, excess-ice content) were measured. The dataset includes cryostratigraphic descriptions, gravimetric (GMC) and volumetric (VMC) moisture content, excess-ice content (EIC), electrical conductivity (EC) and photographs of the permafrost exposures and frozen cores obtained from boreholes.
The mapping depicts the relative abundance of wedge ice in upper permafrost at a national scale. The mapping is based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019). The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.
The mapping depicts the relative abundance of relict (buried glacier) ice preserved in upper permafrost at a national scale. The mapping is based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019). The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.
This map depicts the distribution, characteristics, and boundaries of permafrost and ground ice in Canada. Permafrost classification is based on the proportion of land that is underlain by permafrost within a a given area.Canada was divided into physiographic units, and each unit was classified in terms of permafrost extent and ground ice content. The map shows mountain permafrost as sporadic or isolated discontinuous permafrost, rather than as a separate category.
This map can be found in the The National Atlas of Canada, 5th Edition (1978-95) published by Natural Resources Canada.
The map and descriptive information was taken from the National Atlas of Canada website http://atlas.gc.ca. © 2002. Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada with permission of Natural Resources Canada.
Geological Survey of Canada, Map 1691A, scale 1:1 000 000.] The map provides information on permafrost distribution and ground ice conditions in the Mackenzie Region of northwestern Canada. The data set comprises three data layers: maps of permafrost zones, rivers, and lakes. The map themes (layers) are in the ESRI Shapefile spatial data format (ArcView files). The permafrost map codes continuous, discontinuous, intermediate, sporadic, and isolated permafrost, and glaciers. Data are available via ftp
This is an infographic that shows how new models depict ground ice in permafrost in Canada. The models use a new approach to calculate ground ice abundance in a geographic information system.
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Thermal permafrost degradation and coastal erosion in the Arctic remobilize substantial amounts of organic carbon (OC) and nutrients which have accumulated in late Pleistocene and Holocene unconsolidated deposits. Permafrost vulnerability to thaw subsidence, collapsing coastlines and irreversible landscape change are largely due to the presence of large amounts of massive ground ice such as ice wedges. However, ground ice has not, until now, been considered to be a source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) and other elements which are important for ecosystems and carbon cycling. Here we show, using biogeochemical data from a large number of different ice bodies throughout the Arctic, that ice wedges have the greatest potential for DOC storage, with a maximum of 28.6 mg/L (mean: 9.6 mg/L). Variation in DOC concentration is positively correlated with and explained by the concentrations and relative amounts of typically terrestrial cations such as Mg2+ and K+. DOC sequestration into ground ice was more effective during the late Pleistocene than during the Holocene, which can be explained by rapid sediment and OC accumulation, the prevalence of more easily degradable vegetation and immediate incorporation into permafrost. We assume that pristine snowmelt is able to leach considerable amounts of well-preserved and highly bioavailable DOC as well as other elements from surface sediments, which are rapidly frozen and stored in ground ice, especially in ice wedges, even before further degradation. We found that ice wedges in the Yedoma region represent a significant DOC (45.2 Tg) and DIC (33.6 Tg) pool in permafrost areas and a freshwater reservoir of 4200 km**3. This study underlines the need to discriminate between particulate OC and DOC to assess the availability and vulnerability of the permafrost carbon pool for ecosystems and climate feedback upon mobilization.
The Permafrost Map for Northwestern Canada (Mackenzie Region) is a digital version of the 1:1,000,000 map produced by Heginbottom and Radburn [Heginbottom, J.A. and Radburn, L.K. (compilers) 1992. Permafrost and ground ice conditions of northwestern Canada; Geological Survey of Canada, Map 1691A, scale 1:1 000 000.] The map provides information on permafrost distribution and ground ice conditions in the Mackenzie Region of northwestern Canada. The data set comprises three data layers: maps of permafrost zones, rivers, and lakes. The map themes (layers) are in the ESRI Shapefile spatial data format (ArcView files). The permafrost map codes continuous, discontinuous, intermediate, sporadic, and isolated permafrost, and glaciers. Data are available via ftp
The Canadian permafrost thickness database includes publicly available information from published and unpublished sources for 1005 sites
Contained within the 5th Edition (1978 to 1995) of the National Atlas of Canada has a large that shows the extent of permafrost and abundance of ground ice; mapping units are based on physiographic regions. Point data on map give permafrost temperature and thickness for specific sites. The second, smaller, map shows the mean annual ground temperatures. Graphs show four shallow temperature profiles (to 25 metres depth), and four deep temperature profiles (to several hundred metres depth).
This project involves measuring regional and site variability in maximum annual active layer development and vertical surface movement over permafrost, and monitoring sites over time in order to observe trends. The project records maximum thaw penetration, maximum heave and subsidence, late season snow depths, current depth of thaw, elevation, and soil properties. Some sites are twinned with soil- and air-temperature recording equipment.
The project includes about 60 monitoring stations extending from Fort Simpson, Canada, in the upper Mackenzie River valley to the Beaufort Sea coast at North Head, Richards Island, Canada. Ten of the sites are part of the IPA's Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring (CALM) Program. CALM site numbers are in parentheses after the site names: North Head (C3), Taglu (C4), Lousy Point (C5), Reindeer Depot (C7), Rengleng River (C8), Mountain River (C9), Norman Wells (C11), Ochre River (C13), Willowlake River (C14), and Fort Simpson (C15). See the CALM Program Web page for geographic coordinates and site history for all CALM sites.
These data are the property of the people of Canada and the responsibility of the Geological Survey of Canada. If published, adequate acknowledgment is expected. Please contact F. M. Nixon regarding use of the data set or access to the extended data.
Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
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To quantify the ground volumes on Ellef Ringnes Island NU, Canada), 100 boreholes were drilled to depths up to 3 meters from 1974 to 1977. This borehole was drilled on 1976-07-27 with a hand-held modified CRREL drill and is 2.2 m deep. The dataset describes active layer thickness, soil stratigraphy, volumetric ground ice content, and surface deposits. Volumetric ice content was determined with a combination of visual estimates and laboratory measurements. _NCProperties=version=2,netcdf=4.7.3,hdf5=1.10.6 acknowledgement=Willing and able assistance in an unpleasant climate was given by A.C. Liard and W .G. Green (Graham Island, 1974); R. O'Breham and W.R. Archer (Ellef Ringners and King Christian islands, 1976); C.N.D. Hotze! and W.R. Archer (Amund Ringnes, Cornwall, and King Christian islands, 1977). Aircraft support in 1976 and 1977 was provided by Polar Continental Shelf Project of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. The report was critically read by Dr. L.A. Dredge, who suggested a number of improvements and alternative interpretations. Result digitizing was supported by PermafrostNet Theme 1. cdm_altitude_proxy=depth_below_ground_surface cdm_data_type=Profile cdm_profile_variables=profile comments=The location of the borehole was given using the National Topographic System Grid Reference in the report, then repositioned manually to obtain GPS coordinates, so it should be considered approximate. contributor_email=,samuel.gagnon.1@gmail.com,, contributor_name=Douglas A. Hodgson, Samuel Gagnon, Mohammadhossein Gamshadzaei, Michel Paquette contributor_role=principalInvestigator,pointOfContact,distributor,distributor contributor_url= Conventions=CF-1.6, ACDD-1.3 Easternmost_Easting=-100.9532 environment_description= featureType=Profile geospatial_lat_max=78.15159 geospatial_lat_min=78.15159 geospatial_lat_units=degrees_north geospatial_lon_max=-100.9532 geospatial_lon_min=-100.9532 geospatial_lon_units=degrees_east ground_slope_angle= ground_slope_direction= infoUrl=https://doi.org/10.4095/109296 institution=Geological Survey of Canada land_units= location=Ellef Ringnes Island metadata_link=https://doi.org/10.4095/109296 Northernmost_Northing=78.15159 observation_depth_max=2.2 observation_depth_min=0 organic_matter_thickness= overburden_thickness= permafrost_status=present platform=borehole platform_id=WSAI_76:27/7-2 platform_orientation= platform_pitch_fore_down=90 processing_level=The data was retrieved from a digital version of the report "Surficial Materials, southern Ellef Ringnes, King Christian and Adjacent Islands, District of Franklin (1982)"; the data was retranscribed manually and some fields were uniformized across all boreholes (e.g., surface deposits, soil material). project=Surficial Materials and Geomorphological Processes, Western Sverdrup and Adjacent Islands, District of Franklin project_id=GSC_WSAI_1982 references=https://doi.org/10.4095/109296 sourceUrl=(local files) Southernmost_Northing=78.15159 standard_name_vocabulary=CF Standard Name Table v78 surface_cover=unknown surficial_geology=alluvial time_coverage_end=1977-07-27T00:00:00Z time_coverage_resolution= time_coverage_start=1977-07-27T00:00:00Z vegetation_type=Not recorded Westernmost_Easting=-100.9532
This repository includes data and code to accompany the manuscript 'Topography controls variability in circumpolar permafrost thaw pond expansion' by Abolt et al. The data include satellite imagery and derived maps of thermokarst pools from twenty-seven survey areas in North America and Siberia. The code, written in MATLAB (R2021a), contains demonstrations of the workflow for generating the maps. The demonstrations include training a generalized UNet for mapping thermokarst pools using data from three survey areas, 'fine tuning' the UNet for use at a specific survey area using transfer learning, applying a trained UNet to infer thermokarst pool extent within satellite imagery, and performing histogram matching as a pre-processing step to improve satellite imagery contrast. Contains MATLAB script files and M files, TIF files, shape files, XML, Excel, TXT, and CSV files. The Next-Generation Ecosystem Experiments: Arctic (NGEE Arctic) was a research effort to reduce uncertainty in Earth System Models by developing a predictive understanding of carbon-rich Arctic ecosystems and feedbacks to climate. NGEE Arctic was supported by the Department of Energy's Office of Biological and Environmental Research. The NGEE Arctic project had two field research sites: 1) located within the Arctic polygonal tundra coastal region on the Barrow Environmental Observatory (BEO) and the North Slope near Utqiagvik (Barrow), Alaska and 2) multiple areas on the discontinuous permafrost region of the Seward Peninsula north of Nome, Alaska. Through observations, experiments, and synthesis with existing datasets, NGEE Arctic provided an enhanced knowledge base for multi-scale modeling and contributed to improved process representation at global pan-Arctic scales within the Department of Energy's Earth system Model (the Energy Exascale Earth System Model, or E3SM), and specifically within the E3SM Land Model component (ELM).
Data Sources:CanCoast Coastal Sensitivity Index 2090s, CanCoast Coastal Sensitivity Index 2020s, CanCoast Ground Ice, CanCoast Sea Level Change 2006 to 2099, CanCoast Sea Level Change 2006 to 2020, CanCoast Mean Wave Height with Sea Ice 1996-2005, CanCoast Mean Wave Height with Sea Ice 2090-2099Manson, G.K., Couture, N.J., and James, T.S., 2019. CanCoast Version 2.0: data and indices to describe the sensitivity of Canada's marine coasts to changing climate; Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 8551, 1 .zip file. https://doi.org/10.4095/314669Natural Resources of Canada:Permafrost Atlas of Canada: https://maps-cartes.services.geo.ca/server_serveur/services/NRCan/permafrost_atlas_of_canada_en/MapServer/WMSServer?request=GetCapabilities&service=WMS Esri:basemap: https://basemaps.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World_Basemap_v2/VectorTileServerArctic Sea Ice Extent: https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=d1fb8225058e4a0d96ead7b9a574a652
Open AccessThis project aimed to produce the first wall-to-wall estimate of C stocks in plants and soils of Canada at 250 m spatial resolution. This dataset contains the map with the soil organic carbon (SOC) in kg/m² for entire Canada in 30cm and 1m depth, and the uncertainty in SOC predictions. The SOC stock map was produced using 39,323 ground samples of soil organic carbon concentration (g/kg) distributed in 6,533 sites, 11,068 ground samples of bulk density (kg/dm3) distributed in 2,157 sites, long-term climate data, remote sensing observations and a machine learning model. The soil samples containing the x and y coordinates, depth and SOC (in g/kg) information were overlaid with the stacked covariates (soil forming factors) to compose the regression matrix. Random forest models were trained using a recursive feature elimination scheme and a cross-validation assessment. The best model was used for spatial prediction of SOC over Canada in intermediate depths between 0 and 1 m (0cm, 5cm, 15cm, 30cm, 60cm, 100cm). Afterwards, the SOC stock of each depth increment was computed using SOC concentration and bulk density maps, and corrected with coarse fragment information. The depth increments have been added to compose the 0-30cm and 0-1m depth intervals multiplied by rooting depths fraction to discount shallow soils. Water and ice/snow areas were removed using a mask based on the Land Cover of Canada map. Ground ice in permafrost areas was discounted according to ice abundance using the ground ice map of Canada. The SOC stock uncertainty map is the difference between the first and third quantiles of a quantile regression forest approach of SOC concentration and bulk density prediction (90% confidence interval).
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The National Ecological Framework for Canada's "Permafrost by Ecodistrict” dataset contains tables that provide permafrost information within the ecodistrict framework polygon. It provides permafrost codes and their English and French language descriptions as well as information about the percentage of the polygon that the component occupies. Permafrost is defined as a state of the ground, whether soil or rock, that remains at or below a temperature of 0° C for long periods (NRC, Permafrost Subcommittee, 1988). The minimum period is from one winter, through the following summer, and into the next winter; however, most permafrost has existed for much longer. This formal definition considers only the temperature of the ground, and thus permafrost is a strictly thermal phenomenon, and not a material. At temperatures below 0° C , almost all of the soil moisture occurs in the form of ground ice. Ground ice usually exists at temperature close to its melting point and so is liable to melt if the ground warms. The extent and nature of permafrost, including estimated ice content and typical ground ice forms are derived from the map "Canada - Permafrost" (Natural Resources Canada, 1995).
Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0https://open.canada.ca/en/open-government-licence-canada
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The mapping depicts a first-order estimate of the combined volumetric percentage of excess ice in the top 5 m of permafrost from segregated, wedge, and relict ice. The estimates for the three ice types are based on modelling by O'Neill et al. (2019) (https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-753-2019), and informed by available published values of ground ice content and expert knowledge. The mapping offers an improved depiction of ground ice in Canada at a broad scale, incorporating current knowledge on the associations between geological and environmental conditions and ground ice type and abundance. It provides a foundation for hypothesis testing related to broad-scale controls on ground ice formation, preservation, and melt.