Abstracts - Posters
Permafrost 3D Modelling for Impact Assessment on Northern Community Infrastructure Due to Climate Warming
Fuqun Zhou1, Aining Zhang, Lichun Zhu and Robert Li
1Natural Resources Canada
fuqun.zhou@nrcan.gc.ca
IPCC estimates that the average global surface temperature is likely to increase between 1.4°C and 5.8°C by 2100 as a result of various greenhouse gas emission scenarios. Climate warming will increase active layer thickness of permafrost, cause considerable terrain disturbance, and affect the stability of northern community house/building foundation systems.
In order to evaluate quantitatively the impact of climate change on northern community infrastructure, a fully integrated heat and water permafrost 3D model is developed to simulate permafrost thermodynamics underneath and surrounding of foundation systems with the changing climate environment. The permafrost model is a physical process-based model with two closely linked components - the ground surface component and underground component.
The surface component models energy and water balances above ground surface, and is designed to fit the environment of northern community foundation systems by considering several surface conditions such as bare soil, paved and unpaved surface. In particular, the component modifies solar radiation by modeling house/building's location, dimensions, and orientation as part of the energy balance process.
The ground component uses Finite Element Method for modeling geothermal and hydrological transfers in permafrost. It simulates both heat and water transfer processes of ground in an integrated manner. The ground component and the surface component are also integrated through heat and water fluxes.
The developed model has been validated by two data sets, one in a natural condition, and the other close to a building. The validation results show that the model results match reasonably well with the measured borehole data.
2005-04-06 |
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