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Methane emission bursts from permafrost environments during autumn freeze-in: New insights from ground-penetrating radar

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Author

Summary, in English

Large amounts of methane (CH4) are known to be emitted from permafrost environments during the autumn freeze-in, but the specific soil conditions leading up to these bursts are unclear. Therefore, we used an ultrawide band ground-penetrating radar in Northeast Greenland in autumn 2009 to estimate the volumetric composition inside the soil through dielectric characterization from 200 to 3200 MHz. Our results suggest a compression of the gas reservoir during the phase transition of soil water, which is accompanied by a peak in surface CH4 emissions. About 1 week thereafter, there seems to be a decompression event, consistent with ground cracking which allows the gas reservoir to expand again. This coincides with the largest CH4 emission, exceeding the summer maximum by a factor of 4. We argue that these complementary measurement techniques are needed to come to an understanding of tundra CH4 bursts connected to soil freezing.

Publishing year

2015

Language

English

Pages

6732-6738

Publication/Series

Geophysical Research Letters

Volume

42

Issue

16

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

American Geophysical Union (AGU)

Topic

  • Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
  • Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

Keywords

  • ground-penetrating radar
  • Greenland
  • autumn freeze-in
  • methane
  • frequency domain

Status

Published

Research group

  • Neuronano Research Center (NRC)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1944-8007