the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 14 Oct 2025
Thermo-hydrological observatory in a permafrost river valley landscape in Syrdakh, Central Yakutia
Abstract. Permafrost thaw affects the global carbon cycle and can significantly alter landscape morphology and associated processes of mass and energy transfer. An understudied aspect of affected permafrost landscapes are ubiquitous rivers connecting thermokarst lakes. These ubiquitous features of Arctic landscapes exhibit particularly high variability in water and energy transfer, and thus provide an excellent field laboratory for analyzing how expected changes in meteorological forcing under climate change affect permafrost dynamics and carbon exchange within the land- and limnoscape. This paper presents a database from 2012 through 2022 for one such small stream connecting two thermokarst lakes. First, two main stream cross sections were instrumented with multiple thermistor chains to record temperature evolution from the surface to different soil depths. The cross sections covered different topography and vegetation cover. One was located near the upper, and one in between the two thermokarst lakes. The main focus was set on the cross section midway between the two lakes due to the absence of a thermal imprint from the lake. Air, water, and ground temperatures, as well as river water parameters, and soil properties of the surrounding environment were measured as time series or single tests during annual field campaigns. The data are organized in three main categories: atmosphere, water and ground, and are complemented by a GIS including a digital surface model and an ortho-mosaic photo of the entire river valley to facilitate the search for measurements of interest. The database comes with a complete set of scripts to process any of the data, which are provided in CSV or other easily accessible standard file formats. Ultimately, the data can be used to develop models and validate numerical codes for improving the representation of permafrost processes in land surface and climate models where climate change induces significant changes in heat and mass transfer. All data and processing scripts are available through an online repository (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14619854; Pohl et al. (2025)).
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Status: open (until 17 Dec 2025)
- RC1: 'Comment on essd-2025-134', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Nov 2025 reply
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Thermo-hydrological observatory in a permafrost river valley landscape in Syrdakh, Central Yakutia E. Pohl et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14619854
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- 1
Review of Thermo-hydrological observatory in a permafrost river valley landscape in Syrdakh, Central Yakutia by Pohl et al. for Earth System Science Data
General overview:
This is an exhaustive dataset of a variety of commonly used measurements to characterize permafrost in an area where it is changing rapidly. Overall, it is well written and the explanations are ample to be able to repeat the measurements. In a few locations I suggest further information/clarification. This paper will be of interest to other permafrost scientists but also provides a strong example of how to design a long-term field experiment and name and organize a disparate dataset. The dataset is unique, useful, and complete. The abstract and introduction use carbon as a main motivation to measure/study permafros.t However, I would argue that other biogeochemical parameters, hydrologic changes, and of particular interest infrastructure (linear and horizontal) are also affected by permafrost degradation. Many of the measurements provided could be used to instrument buildings, bridges, airfields, or roads to identify change. Mentioning these additional reasons to study permafrost would strengthen the impact and relevance of the work.
The tense bounces around a lot. For example, around line 254 “were conducted”, at 257: “is provided”, 262: “are based”, 267: “was used” and throughout. Maybe this works to bounce around like this but it is worth making sure it is as consistent as possible.
Comments keyed to the text:
2: permafrost-affected
3: use a different word so as to not use “ubiquitous” twice in a row. Or remove second instance- not needed
7: provide total depth here
10: what parameters?
12: GIS database
37: define “thermokarst lakes” here- what are they and how do they form? What do they represent?
42: put talik definition in parentheses instead of using the “i.e.”
49: is “Yedoma Permafrost Domain” a real name?
I recommend providing a sentence identifying/defining yedoma as high ice content, high carbon and organic matter content permafrost comprised of fine-grained soils and that due to these characteristics state that yedoma is particularly susceptible to thermokarst formation. This is currently mostly provided at 66-69 but is better to move here.
Provide general latitude and longitude here.
73: you defined taliks earlier
80: reference for these protocols?
86: in addition, the focus
88: was installed
109: and creating
110: depths and velocities
Table 1. This is a great list of measurements! Font is extremely small though. Perhaps make it landscape to provide room for a larger font?
Is there a day/date associated with the thaw depth measurements to discern between seasonal thaw and active layer?
Maybe break the active layer/thaw dataset into two since it is important to know whether it is a true active layer or just seasonal thaw at a given moment tin time. At the least the “aclt” label is misleading if it means “active layer thickness.”
Figure 1. I recommend splitting this into a few Figures either here or in an appendix.
Red labels in B are unreadable
Maybe keep A and B as is (Figure 1) but without larger labels on B and then provide C and D as Figures 2 and 3.
155-161: any information on how these installations were done? Maybe a schematic cross section? Or a description? For the HOBO loggers the borehole diameter and construction?
Figure 3. State that the depths of these thermistors are provided as, for example “300” (which I assume means 300 cm).
203-207: are there any “true” active layer depths in the area to compare to?
Figure 5. Also provide some of these measurements over time for given locations to look for trends? Maybe the different ties/dates in September make this not worth doing? Would be good to at least provide the plot and some discussion.
Or a separate plot of just “true” active layer values (presumably you have this for at least 2017 and 2028, maybe other years?).
235-242: This seems to be in the wrong place. It is not related to the ERT.
307: the true active layer or seasonable thaw at that time?
361: “do not derive significantly”- not sure what this means. Do not drift?
366: “do not derive significantly”- not sure what this means. Do not drift?
Figure 14. Provide “north and south” or whatever directions work for this cross section (i.e. the -1000 and 1000).
433: “do not derive significantly”- not sure what this means. Do not drift?
Appendices provide wonderful photos of field site activities and measurements.