Heat Transfer in Soils of the Tibetan Plateau: A Study with the CLASSIC Model

In the context of global climate change, predicting changes in soil temperatures is key to assessing the impacts on permafrost infrastructure, greenhouse gas emissions, agricultural production and water resources. Speed of biochemical cycles in soils, permafrost melting and thus carbon emissions depend on soil thermal regime. In this paper, an analysis of the mechanisms of heat flux in soils was conducted, which identified key factors influencing the temperature regime of soils. The study is based on the conduction laws of heat flux in soils. Predictions of soil temperature levels were made with the numerical model CLASSIC (The Canadian Land Surface Scheme Including Biogeochemical Cycles) for four degradation stages of alpine meadows found in the Tibetan plateau, validating our model against actual meteorological data. Particular attention in the work was paid to analyzing differences in soils of various degrees of disturbance, enabling us to draw conclusions about the significant influence of soil characteristics on heat flax processes.