Incorporating thermokarst in a global model to enhance predictions of permafrost carbon dynamics

Earth system models allow us to explore the influence of environmental change on future climate. They also enable us to extrapolate small scale observations on a global scale. However, the scale of some critical processes in nature does not always match that of Earth system models. I will discuss the challenges and new ideas in modeling the fate of permafrost carbon under permafrost thaw and thermokarst that has a scale much smaller (a few m to km) than the Earth system models (100 km).