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. Earthsystem models (ESMs) are our primary tool for projecting future climatechange, but their ability to represent small-scale land surface processes iscurrently limited. This is especially true for permafrost landscapes in whichmelting of excess ground ice and subsequent subsidence affect lateralprocesses which can substantially alter soil conditions and fluxes of heat,water, and carbon to the atmosphere. Here we demonstrate that dynamicallychanging microtopography and related lateral fluxes of snow, water, and heatcan be represented through a tiling approach suitable for implementation inlarge-scale models, and we investigate which of these lateral processes areimportant to reproduce observed landscape evolution. Combining existingmethods for representing excess ground ice, snow redistribution, and lateralwater and energy fluxes in two coupled tiles, we show that the model approachcan simulate observed degradation processes in two very different permafrostlandscapes. We are able to simulate the transition from low-centered tohigh-centered polygons, when applied to polygonal tundra in the cold,continuous permafrost zone, which results in (i) a more realisticrepresentation of soil conditions through drying of elevated features andwetting of lowered features with related changes in energy fluxes, (ii) up to2  ∘ C reduced average permafrost temperatures in the current(2000–2009) climate, (iii) delayed permafrost degradation in the futureRCP4.5 scenario by several decades, and (iv) more rapid degradation throughsnow and soil water feedback mechanisms once subsidence starts. Applied topeat plateaus in the sporadic permafrost zone, the same two-tile system canrepresent an elevated peat plateau underlain by permafrost in a surroundingpermafrost-free fen and its degradation in the future following a moderatewarming scenario. These results demonstrate the importance of representinglateral fluxes to realistically simulate both the current permafrost stateand its degradation trajectories as the climate continues to warm.Implementing laterally coupled tiles in ESMs could improve the representationof a range of permafrost processes, which is likely to impact the simulatedmagnitude and timing of the permafrost–carbon feedback.

Thaw processes in ice-rich permafrost landscapes represented with laterally coupled tiles in a land surface model