Identifying and understanding key drivers and determinants future permafrost thaw

识别和理解未来永久冻土融化的关键驱动因素和决定因素 这项研究计划将对未来进行预测，并预测在未来几十年和几个世纪内永久冻土融化的影响有多强。解冻是指地面上的部分或全部冰融化。这些冰中的一些可能已经在地下存在了数千年，人类可能从未经历过一个没有它的世界。今天，加拿大超过三分之一的土地在地下有永久冻土，由于人为的气候变化，这一地区的大部分地区将经历解冻，并因此经历非常强烈的变化。 人们可以在变化发生时做出反应，也可以选择向前看，适应未来可能发生的事情。通常，向前看可以实现更智能，成本更低的解决方案，而这项研究计划通过更好地了解永久冻土融化的行为而做出了贡献。我们将选择相关的行为，例如由于地面冰损失而导致的地表下降量，并研究它如何随着时间的推移而变化。在一个地方，一开始可能会有很多降低，几十年后，这将停止。在另一个地方，可能十年内没有下降，但当它开始时，它会持续两个世纪。能够预测这一点将有助于我们决定在哪里建造和如何使用土地。因为没有一个预测是完美的，我们还研究了哪些最重要的因素是推动这些变化的，以及哪些是我们知道得最少的。所有这些都是通过计算机模拟完成的，永久冻土模型从地球系统模型中获得数据，这些模型将全球气候预测到未来几十年或几个世纪。 为了信任这些模型，我们需要看看它们是否能很好地预测我们已经知道和过去观察到的东西。而且，作为科学家，我们有机会了解预测和观察不匹配的情况。这就是为什么这项研究计划有第二部分，观察永久冻土融化，然后测试和改进我们使用的计算机模型。这是特别重要的，因为我们有很少的数据和测量多年冻土融化的经验很少。通过测量和计算机模型来研究解冻，我们可以了解它如何以一种稳健的方式表现出来。测量使我们了解过去，模型允许模拟我们还不知道的东西。 学生和其他受训人员是进行学术研究的关键原因，加拿大迫切需要能够为气候变化做好准备和应对气候变化的专家。该研究计划使学生和受训人员接触到基于计算机的工作，在北方的实地考察和与北方人的合作。这些多才多艺的毕业生将能够将研究成果付诸实践，为政府，行业和社区，并通过他们的多样化的经验和技能有助于建设加拿大社会的弹性。

Identifying and understanding key drivers and determinants of future permafrost thaw This research program will make projections into the future and predict how strong the effects of permafrost thaw will be in coming decades and centuries. Thaw refers to some or all of the ice in the ground melting. Some of this ice may have been in the ground for thousands of years and humans may never have experienced a world without it. Today, more than one-third of Canada has permafrost in the subsurface and because of human-made climate change, much of this area will experience thaw and undergo very strong changes as a result. People can respond to changes as they happen or chose to look forward and adapt to what will likely happen in the future. Usually, looking forward enables smarter and less costly solutions and this research program contributes to this by better understanding the behaviour of permafrost thaw. We will select relevant behaviours, for example the amount of surface lowering because of ice-loss in the ground, and study how it changes over time. In one place, there may be a lot of lowering at first and after a few decades, this will stop. At another place there may be no lowering for a decade but when it starts, it continues for two centuries. Being able to predict this will help to make decision about where we build and how we use the land. And because no prediction is perfect, we also study what the most important factors are that drive these changes and which of them we know least. All of this is done with computer simulation where permafrost models get their data from Earth-system models that project global climate decades or centuries into the future. To trust these models, we need to see if they do a good job in predicting what we already know and have observed in the past. And also, as scientists we have a chance to learn when the prediction and the observation do not match. This is why this research program has a second part that observes permafrost thaw and then tests and improves the computer models we use. This is especially important because we have little data and very little experience of measuring permafrost thaw. By investigating thaw with measurements and with computer models, we can learn how it behaves in a robust way. Measurements ground us in the past and models allow to simulate what we do not yet know. Students and other trainees are key reason to perform academic research and Canada urgently needs experts capable of preparing for and responding to climate change. This research program exposes students and trainees to a combination of computer-based work, fieldwork in the north and collaboration with northerners. Such multi-talented graduates will be able to put the research results into practice for government, industry and communities and through their diverse experience and skill contribute to building resiliency in Canadian society.