Climate and Ecosystem Factors Mediate Soil Freeze-Thaw Cycles at the Continental Scale

Abstract

Freeze-thaw cycles (FTC) alter soil function through changes to physical organization of the soil matrix and biogeochemical processes. Understanding how dynamic climate and soil properties influence FTC may enable better prediction of ecosystem response to changing climate patterns. In this study, we quantified FTC occurrence and frequency across 40 National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) sites. We used site mean annual precipitation (MAP) and mean annual temperature (MAT) to define warm and wet, warm and dry, and cold and dry climate groupings. Site and soil properties, including MAT, MAP, maximum-minimum temperature difference, aridity index, precipitation as snow (PAS), and organic mat thickness, were used to characterize climate groups and investigate relationships between site properties and FTC occurrence and frequency. Ecosystem-specific drivers of FTC provided insight into potential changes to FTC dynamics with climate warming. Warm and dry sites had the most FTC, driven by rapid diurnal FTC close to the soil surface in winter. Cold and dry sites were characterized by fewer, but longer-duration FTC, which mainly occurred in spring and increased in number with higher organic mat thickness (Spearman's ⍴ = 0.97, p < 0.01). The influence of PAS and MAT on the occurrence of FTC depended on climate group (binomial model interaction p (χ²) < 0.05), highlighting the role of a persistent snowpack in buffering soil temperature fluctuations. Integrating ecosystem type and season-specific FTC patterns identified here into predictive models may increase predictive accuracy for dynamic system response to climate change.