Special issue on changing Boreal and Arctic permafrost and snow cover and their impacts

Due to extensive and persistent warming of the climate and the increasing impact of human activities, we are seeing degradation of the Boreal-Arctic permafrost and rapid shrinkage of the snow cover. In the past, much attention has been paid to the reconstruction of past permafrost, monitoring, mapping and evaluation of permafrost and snow cover, and the use of models to predict and evaluate future changes. Little attention, however, has been given to the rapidly changing permafrost and the associated implications. This may have led to an underestimation of the rapid changes in the cryolithozone and their effect on the climate, ecosystem and hydrology systems and on humans. In particular, natural resources and environmental management in northern countries requires better and more systematic understanding of the history, processes, mechanisms and trends of the northern cryosphere and their environmental and engineering impacts.

This special issue presents the latest progress in studies on the warming climate and changing Circum-Arctic cryosphere (with a primary focus on Arctic and Boreal permafrost and snow cover) and their impacts on ecosystems, hydrology and water security, engineered infrastructures, and public-health safety.

Topics covered: 

• The changing Arctic and Boreal climate-snow-cover-permafrost system and its global impacts.
• Interactions of snow cover, ecosystems, soil hydrology and nutrient cycles in the north.
• Changing permafrost and snow cover in the Boreal zone and their ecological and hydrological impacts.
• Changing northern permafrost and its impacts on infrastructures and public health safety.
• Monitoring, mapping and dataset development for Circum-Arctic permafrost and snow cover, and associated impacts.
• Methods and tools for investigating, simulating, predicting and evaluating the northern permafrost and snow cover.

Important deadlines:

• Submission deadline: 31 July 2022
• Publication date: prior to 31 December 2022

Submission instructions:

Please read the journal Guide for Authors before submitting. All articles should be submitted online; please select Changing Boreal and Arctic permafrost and snow cover and their impacts.

Guest Editors:

• Professor Huijun Jin, Northeast Forestry University | State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soils Engineering, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China. Emails: hjjin@nefu.edu.cn; hjjin@lzb.ac.cn
• Professor Daqing Yang, Institute of Tibet Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. Email: liggligg@126.com
• Dr. Olga Makarieva, Melnikov Permafrost Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences | St. Petersburg State University, Russia. Emails: omakarieva@gmail.com; o.makareva@spbu.ru
• Professor Liang Tang, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China. Email:  tangliang@hit.edu