Freezing and thawing of the active layer in the source area of the Yellow River

What is it about?

Freezing and thawing processes of the active layer on the earth have greatly altered the geomorphologies, and impacted the growth of the vegetation. Freezing and thawing processes in the Arctic and Subarctic regions had been widely reported during the past one decade or two. However, very few about the freezing and thawing of the active layer on the high altitudinal permafrost regions are reported. Actually, they present different processes of the active layer on the QTP. In this study, the spatiotemperal variations of freezing/thawing processes of the active layer in the source area of the Yellow River are reported.

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Why is it important?

The freezing and thawing processes of the active layer overlying permafrost is crucial to surface energy and water exchanges, ecology and hydrology, particularly for one of climate susceptible regions on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the source area of the Yellow River (SAYR). The SAYR is dominantly occupied by warm and thin permafrost that coexists with seasonally frozen ground. Therefore, we setup four plots equipping with soil temperature and moisture content in varied thermal regime of frozen ground.

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