Ground-atmosphere modelling of mountain permafrost evolution: Strategies to combine RCM and subsurface simulations

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Within this project regional climate simulations shall be combined with a permafrost specific subsurface model for assessing the sensitivity of Alpine permafrost regions to climate change. Due to large differences in spatial scales between state-of-the-art Regional Climate Models (RCM; 10 km x 10 km) and subsurface models for permafrost impact studies (< 250 m), a meaningful link involves development of adequate numerical and statistical techniques for spatio-temporal coupling of RCM scenario time series to permafrost evolution models. Suitable downscaling techniques will be developed based on mountain permafrost specific atmospheric forcing parameters (radiation, 2 m temperature, snow cover duration) as well as changes in frequency of dominant weather systems. Based on an existing soil-vegetation-atmosphere-transport (SVAT) model, a mountain permafrost specific subsurface model will be developed to analyse probable evolution scenarios of subsurface temperature and ice content (permafrost degradation or aggradation). Simulations will be conducted for the various mountain permafrost test sites of the Bündel and validated through data sets from all Bündel partners as well as PERMOS (Permafrost Monitoring Switzerland) and PACE (Permafrost and Climate in Europe) networks.