Hugues Lantuit

Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research | AWI · Department of Permafrost Research

Arctic permafrost coasts are sensitive to changing climate. The lengthening open water season and the increasing open water area are likely to induce greater erosion and threaten community and industry infrastructure as well as dramatically change nutrient pathways in the near-shore zone. The shallow, mediterranean Arctic Ocean is likely to be stro...

Retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs) are spectacular landforms that occur due to the thawing of ice-rich permafrost or melting of massive ground ice, often in hillslope terrain. RTSs occur in the Arctic, the subarctic, and high mountain (Qinghai–Tibet Plateau) permafrost regions and are observed to expand in size and number due to climate warming. As t...

Mega retrogressive thaw slumps (MRTS, >10⁶ m³) are a major threat to Arctic infrastructure, alter regional biogeochemistry, and impact Arctic carbon budgets. However, processes initiating and reactivating MRTS are insufficiently understood. We hypothesize that MRTS preferentially develop a polycyclic behavior because the material is thermally and m...

The EU-funded Arctic PASSION research project focuses on refining, improving and extending pan-Arctic scientific and community-based monitoring systems. The aim is to create a coherent and integrated Arctic observing system, tailored to the needs of the users or stakeholders. Within the project’s Permafrost Service, we are developing a web-based po...

Permafrost coastlines represent a large portion of the world’s coastal area and these areas have become increasingly vulnerable owing to the changing climate and its strong dynamics observed over the past decades (Irrgang et al., 2022). The predominant mechanism of coastal erosion in these areas has been identified through several observational stu...

Retrogressive thaw slumps (RTSs in plural and RTS in singular) are spectacular landforms that occur due to the thawing of ice-rich permafrost or melting of massive ground ice often in hillslope terrain. RTSs occur in the Arctic, Subarctic as well as high mountain (Tibetan Plateau) permafrost regions and are observed to expand in size and number due...

Erosion of permafrost coasts due to climate warming releases large quantities of organic carbon (OC) into the Arctic Ocean. While burial of permafrost OC in marine sediments potentially limits degradation, resuspension of sediments in the nearshore zone potentially enhances degradation and greenhouse gas production, adding to the “permafrost carbon...

Permafrost has undergone rapid warming since the 1980s. The resulting permafrost thaw has already led to economic consequences, for example coastal retreat requiring the relocation of several settlements, engineering costs necessary to repair or avoid collapses of buildings, airports, railways, roads, and pipelines, etc. Calculating Gross Domestic...

The Arctic is experiencing the greatest increase in air temperature on Earth. This significant climatic change is leading to a significant positive trend of increasing wave heights and greater coastal erosion. This in turn effects local economies and ecosystems. Increasing wave energy is one of the main drivers of this alarming trend. However, the...

Soil organic carbon (SOC) in Arctic coastal polygonal tundra is vulnerable to climate change, especially in soils with occurrence of large amounts of ground ice. Pan-arctic studies of mapping SOC exist, yet they fail to describe the high spatial variability of SOC storage in permafrost landscapes. An important factor is the landscape history which...

The weathering rate of carbonate minerals is several orders of magnitude higher than for silicate minerals. Therefore, small amounts of carbonate minerals have the potential to control the dissolved weathering loads in silicate-dominated catchments. Both weathering processes produce alkalinity under the consumption of CO2. Given that only alkalinit...

Arctic permafrost coasts are greatly impacted by global climate change. Warming permafrost, decreasing sea ice extent and increasing sea temperature lead to greater coastal erosion. The carbon stored in the permafrost is then released into the nearshore zone, where it degrades, potentially leading to the release of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in...

Climate warming and related drivers of soil thermal change in the Arctic are expected to modify the distribution and dynamics of carbon contained in perennially frozen grounds. Thawing of permafrost in the Mackenzie River watershed of northwestern Canada, coupled with increases in river discharge and coastal erosion, triggers the release of terrest...

Alkalinity generation from rock weathering modulates Earth’s climate at geological time scales. Although lithology is thought to dominantly control alkalinity generation globally, the role of other first-order controls appears elusive. Particularly challenging remains the discrimination of climatic and erosional influences. Based on global observat...

The Arctic is rapidly changing. Outside the Arctic, large-sample catchment databases have transformed catchment science from focusing on local case studies to more systematic studies of watershed functioning. Here we present an integrated pan-ARctic CAtchments summary DatabasE (ARCADE) of > 40 000 catchments that drain into the Arctic Ocean and ran...

The weathering rate of carbonate minerals is several orders of magnitude higher than for silicate minerals. Therefore, small amounts of carbonate minerals have the potential to control the dissolved weathering loads in silicate-dominated catchments. Both weathering processes produce alkalinity under the consumption of CO2. Given that only alkalinit...

Increasing arctic coastal erosion rates imply a greater release of sediments and organic matter into the coastal zone. With 213 sediment samples taken around Herschel Island—Qikiqtaruk, Canadian Beaufort Sea, we aimed to gain new insights on sediment dynamics and geochemical properties of a shallow arctic nearshore zone. Spatial characteristics of...

In the Arctic, air temperatures are increasing and sea ice is declining, resulting in larger waves and a longer open water season, all of which intensify the thaw and erosion of ice-rich coasts. Climate change has been shown to increase the rate of Arctic coastal erosion, causing problems for Arctic cultural heritage, existing industrial, military,...

People in the Arctic have been experiencing severe changes to their environments for several decades. In particular the thawing of permafrost affects the livelihoods of indigenous people and has far-reaching ecological impacts including the additional release of greenhouse gases. By fusing local knowledge on landscape changes in Northwest Canada an...

The Arctic is greatly affected by climate change. Increasing air temperatures drive permafrost thaw and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This results in a greater input of sediment and organic matter into nearshore waters, impacting ecosystems by reducing light transmission through the water column and altering biogeochemistry. T...

The Arctic is rapidly changing. Outside the Arctic, large-sample catchment databases have transformed catchment science from focusing on local case studies to more systematic studies of watershed functioning. Here we present an integrated pan-ARctic CAtchments summary DatabasE (ARCADE) of >40,000 catchments that drain into the Arctic Ocean and rang...

Ongoing climate warming in the western Canadian Arctic is leading to thawing of permafrost soils and subsequent mobilization of its organic matter pool. Part of this mobilized terrestrial organic matter enters the aquatic system as dissolved organic matter (DOM) and is laterally transported from land to sea. Mobilized organic matter is an important...

Arctic coasts, which feature land-ocean transport of freshwater, sediments, and other terrestrial material, are impacted by climate change, including increased temperatures, melting glaciers, changes in precipitation and runoff. These trends are assumed to affect productivity in fjordic estuaries. However, the spatial extent and temporal variation...

The current warming rate of arctic permafrost landscapes exceeds the global warming rate by two- to threefold. This leads to rapidly changing landscape changes like thawing of permafrost, erosion or thermokarst affecting the livelihood of indigenous people in the far north. Besides this strong socio-economic impact on arctic communities as well as...

Changes in snowpack associated with climatic warming has drastic impacts on surface energy balance in the cryosphere. Yet, traditional monitoring techniques, such as punctual measurements in the field, do not cover the full snowpack spatial and temporal variability, which hampers efforts to upscale measurements to the global scale. This variability...

The Arctic is greatly affected by climate change. Increasing air temperatures drive permafrost thaw and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This results in a greater input of sediment and organic matter into nearshore waters, impacting ecosystems by reducing light transmission through the water column and altering biogeochemistry. T...

People in the Arctic have been experiencing dramatic changes to their landscapes for several decades. One cause is the thawing of permafrost, which affects the livelihoods of indigenous people the hardest. The thawing process of permafrost is also associated with ecological impacts including the release of greenhouse gases. Thawing is evident from...

Die Arktis verändert sich aufgrund der globalen Klimaerwärmung stark. Während einige der Auswirkungen direkt beobachtet werden können, findet das Permafrost-Tauen in den verborgenen Tiefen des Bodens statt. Taut der Permafrost, so können zusätzliche Treibhausgase in die Atmosphäre gelangen und die globale Erwärmung verstärken. Zudem kommt es zu öko...

The Arctic is one of the most impacted regions by climate change. Rising air temperatures and the shortening of sea ice periods lead to accelerated erosion rates of permafrost coasts. With coastal erosion, the input of sediment and organic matter into nearshore waters increases, influencing local economies, ecosystems and climate by releasing green...

La région Arctique est particulièrement fragilisée par les changements climatiques, où le réchauffement est deux à trois fois plus élevées qu’ailleurs sur la planète. On note une diminution massive de l’étendue et de l’épaisseur de la glace de mer, ce qui prolonge la période d’eau libre de glace et qui expose les côtes aux évènements de tempêtes pr...

Abstract | Arctic coasts are vulnerable to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels and the loss of permafrost, sea ice and glaciers. Assessing the influence of anthropogenic warming on Arctic coastal dynamics, however, is challenged by the limited availability of observational, oceanographic and environmental data. Yet, with the...

Ongoing climate warming in the western Canadian Arctic is leading to thawing of permafrost soils and subsequent mobilization of its organic matter pool. Part of this mobilized terrestrial organic matter enters the aquatic system as dissolved organic matter (DOM) and is laterally transported from land to sea. Mobilized organic matter is an important...

The Arctic is greatly impacted by climate change. The increase in air temperature drives the thawing of permafrost and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This leads to a greater input of sediment and organic matter into coastal waters, which substantially impacts the ecosystems by reducing light transmission through the water colum...

The Arctic is greatly impacted by climate change. The increase in air temperature drives the thawing of permafrost and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This leads to a greater input of sediment and organic matter into coastal waters, which substantially impacts the ecosystems by reducing light transmission through the water colum...

Changes in snowpack associated with climatic warming has drastic impacts on surface energy balance in the cryosphere. Yet, traditional monitoring techniques, such as punctual measurements in the field, do not cover the full snowpack spatial and temporal variability, which hampers efforts to upscale measurements to the global scale. This variability...

We determine Hg concentrations of various deposits in Siberia’s deep permafrost and link sediment properties and Hg enrichment to establish a first Hg inventory of late Pleistocene permafrost down to a depth of 36 m below surface. As Arctic warming is transforming the ice-rich permafrost of Siberia, sediment is released and increases the flux of pa...

Permafrost thaw is a challenge in many Arctic regions, one that modifies ecosystems and affects infrastructure and livelihoods. To date, there have been no demographic studies of the population on permafrost. We present the first estimates of the number of inhabitants on permafrost in the Arctic Circumpolar Permafrost Region (ACPR) and project chan...

In the Arctic, air temperatures are warming and sea ice is declining, resulting in larger waves and a longer open water season, all of which intensify the thaw and erosion of ice-rich coasts. This change in climate has been shown to increase the rate of Arctic coastal erosion, causing problems for industrial, military, and civil infrastructure as w...

Warming air and sea temperatures, longer open-water seasons and sea-level rise collectively promote the erosion of permafrost coasts in the Arctic, which profoundly impacts organic matter pathways. Although estimates on organic carbon (OC) fluxes from erosion exist for some parts of the Arctic, little is known about how much OC is transformed into...

In high Arctic fjords, riverine inputs of freshwater and terrestrial particles give rise to turbid plumes in the nearshore zone during melt season and thus act as a major impediment to light availability and primary productivity within the water column. However, the remoteness of Arctic fjords limits our understanding of key drivers of these plumes...

Spatial analysis in earth sciences is often based on the concept of spatial autocorrelation, expressed by W. Tobler as the first law of geography: “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things." Here, we show that subsurface soil properties in permafrost tundra terrain exhibit tremendous spatial var...

Essay: https://arctic.noaa.gov/Report-Card/Report-Card-2020/ArtMID/7975/ArticleID/904/Coastal-Permafrost-Erosion

Arctic coastal infrastructure and cultural and archeological sites are increasingly vulnerable to erosion and flooding due to amplified warming of the Arctic, sea level rise, lengthening of open water periods, and a predicted increase in frequency of major storms. Mitigating these hazards necessitates decision-making tools at an appropriate scale....

Collapse of permafrost coasts delivers large quantities of particulate organic carbon (POC) to arctic coastal areas. With rapidly-changing environmental conditions, sediment and organic carbon (OC) mobilization and transport pathways are also changing. Here, we assess the sources and sinks of POC in the highly-dynamic nearshore zone of Herschel Isl...

Plain Language Summary One effect climate change has in the Arctic is the thawing of permafrost. Permafrost is defined as ground that remains below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years. The low temperatures in the High North lead to very slow decomposition rates of organic material from plants and animals. A lot of this material has accumulated...

Plain Language Summary Increasing air and sea surface temperatures at high latitudes leads to accelerated thaw, destabilization, and erosion of perennially frozen soils (i.e., permafrost), which are often rich in organic carbon. Coastal erosion leads to an increased mobilization of organic carbon into the Arctic Ocean, which there can be converted...

Abstract is available at: https://epic.awi.de/id/eprint/50808/

Climate change is affecting the rate of carbon cycling, particularly in the Arctic. Permafrost degradation through deeper thaw and physical disturbances results in the release of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere and to an increase in lateral dissolved organic matter (DOM) fluxes. Whereas riverine DOM fluxes of the large Arctic rivers ar...

The Arctic is directly impacted by climate change. The increase in air temperature drives the thawing of permafrost and an increase in coastal erosion and river discharge. This leads to a greater input of sediment and organic matter into coastal waters, which substantially impacts the ecosystems, the subsistence economy of the local population, and...

Plain Language Summary The permanently frozen soils of the Arctic, known as permafrost, store large amounts of organic carbon, which accumulated over millennia due to slow decomposition in the cold Arctic regions. With climate warming this frozen organic carbon reservoir thaws and microbes recycle it quickly into greenhouse gases, which in turn sup...

1 Why Should we care about snow ? The lack of in-situ data in the Arctic and the problem about accessibility to these region constraints the traditional sampling over a year. While thermodynamic models such as CROCUS or SNOWPACK worked well in alpine area, they still need further calibrations for polar applications 1. 2 How to proceed? First snow c...

Offshore permafrost plays a role in the global climate system, but observations of permafrost thickness, state, and composition are limited to specific regions. The current global permafrost map shows potential offshore permafrost distribution based on bathymetry and global sea level rise. As a first‐order estimate, we employ a heat transfer model...

Permafrost landscapes are changing around the Arctic in response to climate warming, with coastal erosion being one of the most prominent and hazardous features. Using drone platforms, satellite images, and historic aerial photographs, we observed the rapid retreat of a permafrost coastline on Qikiqtaruk – Herschel Island, Yukon Territory, in the C...

Thermokarst results from the thawing of ice-rich permafrost and alters the biogeochemical cycling in the Arctic by reworking soil material and redistributing soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) along uplands, hillslopes, and lowlands. Understanding the impact of this redistribution is key to better estimating the storage of SOC in per...

Yukon’s Beaufort coast, Canada, is a highly dynamic landscape. Cultural sites, infrastructure, and travel routes used by the local population are particularly vulnerable to coastal erosion. To assess threats to these phenomena, rates of shoreline change for a 210 km length of the coast were analyzed and combined with socioeconomic and cultural info...

A lasting legacy of the International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 was the promotion of the Permafrost Young Researchers Network (PYRN), initially an IPY outreach and education activity by the International Permafrost Association (IPA). With the momentum of IPY, PYRN developed into a thriving network that still connects young permafrost scientists, e...

Climate change is an important control of carbon cycling, particularly in the Arctic. Permafrost degradation through deeper thaw and physical disturbances result in the release of carbon dioxide and methane to the atmosphere and to an increase in riverine dissolved organic matter (DOM) fluxes. Whereas riverine DOM fluxes of the large Arctic rivers...