Susceptibility of peatland permafrost in coastal Labrador to future environmental change

多年冻土或岩石（永久冻土）是北方生态系统的重要组成部分，改变了当地的水文、植被和野生动物的使用。多年冻土也是陆地冰冻圈中唯一允许社区和基础设施永久位于其上的元素，富含冰的多年冻土融化可能导致基础设施的结构性破坏，并通过沉降和水文变化导致现有生态系统的退化。最近的一个问题是储存在北极永久冻土中的温室气体的潜在释放，但也在常年冻结的亚北极泥炭地。在加拿大北方，预计在下个世纪，该国南部大部分地区的泥炭地永久冻土将融化。这可能会将大量的碳排放到大气中，影响当地的生态系统，但最近的几项研究表明，泥炭地永久冻土可能比最初预期的更容易受到气候变化的影响。因此，有相当多的辩论，如何和永久冻土融化可能发生在加拿大的未来，并最终有多大的影响，这将在区域的基础上。在拉布拉多海岸，泥炭地永久冻土层沿着整个>1000公里的海岸线成簇出现。然而，缺乏对拉布拉多永久冻土的先前研究意味着这些独特环境在景观上的丰富性及其对未来变暖的脆弱性在很大程度上是未知的。该提案旨在描述拉布拉多沿海泥炭地永冻土的分布特征，并评估可能由气候和其他生态系统修饰剂引起的受永冻土影响的泥炭地的历史和未来变化。这项研究计划将结合联合收割机广泛的实地数据收集，气候监测，遥感分析和数值模拟，以提高我们的泥炭地永久冻土对未来变暖的敏感性的理解。它还将量化目前储存在该地区冻结泥炭地中的碳量，从而为全球碳循环盘点做出贡献。在局部范围内，泥炭地永冻环境被发现邻近两个社区的住房和基础设施，预计将出现沿着潜在的道路路线北部拟议的区域。泥炭地永久冻土环境对拉布拉多沿海的土著和非土著人民也很重要，因为它们通常用于狩猎，诱捕和采摘浆果。后者包括文化价值cloudberry（'apik'在因纽特人），这是丰富的冻土土丘，但很少发现在潮湿的洼地后形成的冻土融化。因此，这些泥炭地的永久冻土分布变化可能会对人类觅食潜力和当地野生动物产生影响。通过这项研究计划的执行，获得的知识将有助于当地的生态完整性和环境评估，以及国家和国际上量化冻土融化和碳储量的努力。

Perennially frozen soil or rock (permafrost) is a critical component of northern ecosystems, altering local hydrology, vegetation and wildlife usage. Permafrost is also the only element of the terrestrial cryosphere that allows communities and infrastructure to be permanently situated on it. Thawing of ice-rich permafrost can lead to structural damage to infrastructure and degradation of current ecosystems through subsidence and hydrological changes. A recent concern is the potential release of greenhouse gases stored in permafrost in the Arctic but also in perennially frozen Subarctic peatlands. In northern Canada, it is expected that peatland permafrost will thaw in most of the southern half of the country over the next century. This could mobilize large quantities of carbon into the atmosphere and impact local ecosystems, but several recent studies showed that peatland permafrost may be less vulnerable to climate change than originally expected. Consequently, there is considerable debate as to how and where permafrost thaw may occur in Canada in the future, and ultimately how much impact this will have on a regional basis. In coastal Labrador, peatland permafrost occurs in clusters along the entirety of the >1000 km coastline. However, a lack of prior studies on permafrost in Labrador means that the abundance of these unique environments on the landscape and their vulnerability to future warming is largely unknown. This proposal aims to characterize the distribution of peatland permafrost in coastal Labrador and to assess historical and future changes to permafrost affected peatlands that could be caused by climatic and other ecosystem modifiers. This research program will combine extensive field data collection, climate monitoring, remote sensing analysis and numerical modelling to enhance our understanding of peatland permafrost susceptibility to future warming. It will also quantify carbon quantities currently stored in frozen peatlands in the region thus contributing to global carbon cycle inventorying. On a local-scale, peatland permafrost environments are found adjacent to housing and infrastructure in two communities and are expected to occur along potential road routes north proposed for the region. Peatland permafrost environments are also locally important to Indigenous and non-Indigenous Peoples in coastal Labrador because they are commonly used for hunting, trapping and berry picking. The latter includes culturally valued cloudberry (`apik' in Inuktitut) which are abundant on permafrost mounds but rarely found in wetter depressions formed post permafrost thaw. Changes to the permafrost distribution in these peatlands may thus have consequences on human foraging potential and local wildlife. Through the execution of this research program knowledge gained will contribute to local ecological integrity and environmental assessment and to national and international efforts to quantify permafrost thaw and carbon stocks.