Permafrost Thaw and Associated Settlement Hazard Onset Timing over the Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor

Abstract

In permafrost areas, the timing of thermal surface settlement hazard onset is of great importance for the construction and maintenance of engineering facilities. Future permafrost thaw and the associated thermal settlement hazard onset timing in the Qinghai-Tibet engineering corridor (QTEC) were analyzed using high-resolution soil temperature data from the Community Land Model version 4 in combination with multiple model and scenario soil temperature data from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5). Compared to the standard frozen ground map for the Tibetan Plateau and ERA-Interim data, a multimodel ensemble reproduces the extent of permafrost and soil temperature change in the QTEC at a 1 m depth from 1986–2005. Soil temperature and active layer thickness increase markedly during 2006–2099 using CMIP5 scenarios. By 2099, the ensemble mean soil temperature at 15 m depth will increase between 1.0 and 3.6 °C in the QTEC. Using crushed-rock revetments can delay the onset of thermal settlement hazard for colder permafrost areas by approximately 17 years in the worst case scenario of RCP8.5. Nearly one-third of the area of the QTEC exhibits settlement hazard as early as 2050, and half of this one-third of the area is traversed by the Qinghai-Tibet highway/railway, a situation that requires more planning and remedial attention. Simulated onsets of thermal settlement hazard correspond well to the observed soil temperature at 15 m depth for seven grid areas in the QETC, which to some extent indicates that these timing estimates are reasonable. This study suggests that climate model-based timing estimation of thermal settlement hazard onset is a valuable method, and that the results are worthy of consideration in engineering design and evaluation.

Keywords

Hazard onset timing / Permafrost / Qinghai-Tibet railway / Thermal hazard

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