Understanding and Assessing Impacts
Permafrost is continuously frozen earth beneath the surface layers that freeze and thaw with the seasons and it covers about 40 per cent of Canada’s landmass. But with northern Canada warming about three times as fast as the rest of the world, climate change threatens the permanence of vast stretches of this frozen ground — and the ecosystems and communities it supports. People living in the subarctic Dehcho region of the NWT are seeing shorter and warmer winters, snow melting earlier in the year, more frequent and severe wildfires, and permafrost thaw, which is receding by about one meter per year. These changes are seen in the flow of the streams, the thickness of the ice on the lake and throughout their forests, which are dying off and being replaced by wetlands.
The SCRS has experienced the effects of climate change firsthand. In 2007 and 2012, SCRS was forced to relocate because melting permafrost had destabilized platforms and other camp infrastructure. Then in the fall of 2022, an intense unseasonal wildfire destroyed the SCRS research station and causing about $2 million in damage. The facility lost research equipment, solar panels, and buildings including housing and lab facilities. Despite attempts like fire breaks and sprinklers, the fire, ironically, consumed the research facility dedicated to understanding climate change. Although the station is once again operational, it will remain closed to researchers until 2024.
This type of fast-paced ecological change is known all too well by communities in the Dehcho and the rest of the Arctic. Recently, the community lost an Elder who fatally fell through ice while fishing – an activity previously considered to be low-risk. It’s becoming more common for equipment like snowmobiles to fall through ice, which are costly to replace. Heavy rainfall events that lead to flooding are also making it difficult for residents to locate and access traditional trails used for hunting, often leading to long detours. These incidents highlight the urgency of addressing climate change in this unique region.
DCoP relies on different types of data to better understand how permafrost is changing in the region. SCRS hosts approximately 100 automated stations where thousands of data points are collected per hour to monitor changes in the landscape. Measurements include meteorological variables including short and longwave radiation, air temperature and humidity, wind speed and direction, water table depth, soil moisture content and ground temperature, precipitation, carbon fluxes, water quality parameters, and related variables. They utilize remote sensing data to measure where permafrost exists in the landscape and how quickly its thawing. Field observations, ground-based surveys, and airborne lidar data are all used to understand how climate change is affecting aquatic ecosystems, water quality, wildfire patterns, greenhouse gas emissions, and the overall livelihoods of the Dehcho Region.
The data and related information gathered by DCoP is used to inform land surface schemes (e.g. WARF, CLASS, etc.) and local and regional climate models used by researchers to examine the impacts of climate warming induced changes to the form and functioning of ecosystems on water resources and climate. Carbon flux data are entered into the AMERIFLUX data repository which is available to researchers and government agencies for climate research and climate change prediction.