Response of the Canadian Permafrost Environment to Climatic Change

Human-induced climatic warming will have major impacts on permafrost, which presently underlies half of Canada's land mass. The adaptation of the northern environment and its physical processes to the altered climate may be contemporaneous or may lag behind climatic change. The extent of permafrost will diminish, accompanied by modifications of the land surface through thermokarst or mass wasting. Streamflow regimes, sediment transport, coastal flooding and erosion will be affected. The magnitude of most components of the water balance will be altered. More research is needed to understand how the permafrost environment behaves during the transient phase, and the problem of permafrost adaptation should be addressed holistically. [Key words: climatic change, frozen ground, ground ice, hydrology, permafrost, periglacial geomorphology, water balance.]