NOAA Arctic Report Card 2023 : Permafrost Beneath Arctic Ocean Margins

Overduin, P. P.; Portnov, A.; Ruppel, C. D.

doi:10.25923/fzwe-6432

i

NOAA Arctic Report Card 2023 : Permafrost Beneath Arctic Ocean Margins

2023
By Overduin, P. P. ; Portnov, A. ; Ruppel, C. D.
Series: NOAA technical report OAR ARC 23-10

Details

Personal Author:

Overduin, P. P. ; Portnov, A. ; Ruppel, C. D.
Corporate Authors:

Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing (U.S.). ; Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung. ; Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra. ; University of Texas at Austin. Institute for Geophysics. ; Geological Survey (U.S.).
NOAA Program & Office:

OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research) ; GOMO (Global Ocean Monitoring and Observing) ; PMEL (Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory)
Description:

Even among scientists, it is not widely known that sediment beneath many continental shelves surrounding the Arctic Ocean is frozen. In areas that were exposed and not glaciated at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; approximately 21,000 years ago), prolonged subaerial exposure froze the ground down to hundreds of meters below the surface, creating permafrost. During deglaciation, sea levels rose and ocean water inundated coastal permafrost at low elevations, resulting in model estimates of 2.5 million km2 of ice-bearing subsea permafrost today (Fig. 1, Overduin et al. 2019). Today, terrestrial permafrost extends from the boreal forests on the south to the Arctic Ocean coastline on the north. On some Arctic Ocean margins, subsea permafrost starts at the coastline and continues northward beneath the seabed, even reaching the edge of the continental shelf in some places.
Keywords:

Climatic Changes Marine Sediments Permafrost Marine Sediments
Series:

NOAA technical report OAR ARC 23-10
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25923/fzwe-6432
Format:

PDF
Document Type:

Technical Report
Place as Subject:

Arctic regions
License:

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Rights Information:

CC0 Public Domain
Compliance:

Submitted
Main Document Checksum:

urn:sha256:d38d754ad9251f7834f29585dd134081a12a5accc112bdb8d89a4bd52f2bd663
Download URL:

https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/56622/noaa_56622_DS1.pdf
File Type:

[PDF - 2.04 MB ]

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