Abstract
Climate change and engineering activities are the leading causes of permafrost temperature increase, active layer thickening, and ground-ice thaw, which trigger changes in the engineering stability of embankments. Based on the important research advances on permafrost changes and frozen soil engineering in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the changes in permafrost temperature and active layer thickness, their relationships with climate factors, the response process of engineering activities on permafrost, dynamic change of engineering stability of Qinghai-Xizang Railway, and the cooling mechanism and process of crushed-rock layers are discussed using the monitoring data of permafrost and embankment deformation. Finally, solutions to the key scientific problems of frozen soil engineering under climate change are proposed.
Highlights
Frozen soil, one of the cryosphere factors most widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, occupies approximately 56% of the Northern Hemisphere landmass while the areal extent of permafrost covers approximately 24% of the land area [1]
Based on the important research advances on permafrost changes and frozen soil engineering in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau, the changes in permafrost temperature and active layer thickness, their relationships with climate factors, the response process of engineering activities on permafrost, dynamic change of engineering stability of Qinghai-Xizang Railway, and the cooling mechanism and process of crushed-rock layers are discussed using the monitoring data of permafrost and embankment deformation
Permafrost regions occupy approximately 53% of the land area in Qinghai-Xizang Plateau (QXP), which is the high-elevation permafrost most widely distributed on Earth [6,7]
Summary
Permafrost change is a sensitive indicator of climate change [3]. Numerous observation sites were set up to monitor the change of the permafrost regime and ALT in the Northern Hemisphere, as well as to show the temporal and spatial changes in the pattern of the permafrost regime and ALT [19,20,21,22,23]. In the last 30 years, permafrost in the Xinganling regions showed predominant regional degradation, ALT increased by 20–40 cm, and mean annual ground temperature rose about 0.1 to 0.2°C [47,48]. These studies greatly promote the research of permafrost change in China. The changes in ALT and permafrost temperature in QXP are clearly larger than those in other permafrost regions, and the response of permafrost and ALT to climate change has a predominantly regional difference, showing the trend of opposite spatial and temporal change. Taking into consideration the significant spring and summer permafrost warming at 6 m depth because of the three to six months’ time lag, permafrost temperature increases mainly due to increasing air temperature during winter [10]
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