Application of a Hybrid Model in Assessing Northern Peatlands Vulnerability for Various Climate Change Scenarios

The long periods of dry weather reduce the groundwater level and make northern peatlands vulnerable to peatfires. Increasing frequency of such periods may jeopardise normal functioning of these ecosystems under climate change. Here I apply a hybrid model to quantify the area of northern peatlands that become more vulnerable to peatfires under a given climate change scenario. The hybrid model provides an analytical solution of partial differential equations representing an impeded drainage model. The impeded drainage model describes groundwater movement within a watershed partly covered by peatlands that makes it possible to simulate the groundwater level within the watershed for given geomorphological conditions and climatic conditions projected by the Earth System Models. Applying the hybrid models to global fields of monthly temperature and precipitation produced as the part of CMIP6 (sixth phase of the climate model intercomparison project) results in an ensemble-based assessment of the risk imposed by climate change.