Highly restricted near-surface permafrost extent during the mid-Pliocene warm period

Accurate understanding of permafrost dynamics is critical for evaluating and mitigating impacts that may arise as permafrost degrades in the future; however, existing projections have large uncertainties. Studies of how permafrost responded historically during Earth's past warm periods are helpful in exploring potential future permafrost behavior and to evaluate the uncertainty of future permafrost change projections. Here, we combine a surface frost index model with outputs from the second phase of the Pliocene Model Intercomparison Project to simulate the near-surface (similar to 3 to 4 m depth) permafrost state in the Northern Hemisphere during the mid-Pliocene warm period (mPWP, similar to 3.264 to 3.025 Ma). This period shares similarities with the projected future climate. Constrained by proxy-based surface air temperature records, our simulations demonstrate that near-surface permafrost was highly spatially restricted during the mPWP and was 93 +/- 3% smaller than the preindustrial extent. Near-surface permafrost was present only in the eastern Siberian uplands, Canadian high Arctic Archipelago, and northernmost Greenland. The simulations are similar to near-surface permafrost changes projected for the end of this century under the SSP5-8.5 scenario and provide a perspective on the potential permafrost behavior that may be expected in a warmer world.

To Access Resource:

Questions? Email Resource Support Contact:

  • opensky@ucar.edu
    UCAR/NCAR - Library

Resource Type publication
Temporal Range Begin N/A
Temporal Range End N/A
Temporal Resolution N/A
Bounding Box North Lat N/A
Bounding Box South Lat N/A
Bounding Box West Long N/A
Bounding Box East Long N/A
Spatial Representation N/A
Spatial Resolution N/A
Related Links N/A
Additional Information N/A
Resource Format PDF
Standardized Resource Format PDF
Asset Size N/A
Legal Constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Access Constraints None
Software Implementation Language N/A

Resource Support Name N/A
Resource Support Email opensky@ucar.edu
Resource Support Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library
Distributor N/A
Metadata Contact Name N/A
Metadata Contact Email opensky@ucar.edu
Metadata Contact Organization UCAR/NCAR - Library

Author Guo, D.
Wang, H.
Romanovsky, V. E.
Haywood, A. M.
Pepin, N.
Salzmann, U.
Sun, J.
Yan, Q.
Zhang, Z.
Li, X.
Otto-Bliesner, Bette ORCID icon
Feng, R.
Lohmann, G.
Stepanek, C.
Abe-Ouchi, A.
Chan, W.
Peltier, W. R.
Chandan, D.
von der Heydt, A. S.
Contoux, C.
Chandler, M. A.
Tan, N.
Zhang, Q.
Hunter, S. J.
Kamae, Y.
Publisher UCAR/NCAR - Library
Publication Date 2023-09-05T00:00:00
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) Not Assigned
Alternate Identifier N/A
Resource Version N/A
Topic Category geoscientificInformation
Progress N/A
Metadata Date 2025-12-24T19:24:15.426710
Metadata Record Identifier edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26906
Metadata Language eng; USA
Suggested Citation Guo, D., Wang, H., Romanovsky, V. E., Haywood, A. M., Pepin, N., Salzmann, U., Sun, J., Yan, Q., Zhang, Z., Li, X., Otto-Bliesner, Bette, Feng, R., Lohmann, G., Stepanek, C., Abe-Ouchi, A., Chan, W., Peltier, W. R., Chandan, D., von der Heydt, A. S., Contoux, C., Chandler, M. A., Tan, N., Zhang, Q., Hunter, S. J., Kamae, Y.. (2023). Highly restricted near-surface permafrost extent during the mid-Pliocene warm period. UCAR/NCAR - Library. https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d79w0km0. Accessed 01 February 2026.

Harvest Source