376 affecting both global stability and leakage pathways (GTK, 2021; Tuomela, 2022). These processes are influenced by local climate, snow cover, drainage conditions and thermal properties of the materials, and they evolve over decades, making them difficult to characterize based on short monitoring periods. 4.3 Climate change, extremes and permafrost Climate change is expected to intensify many of the climatic drivers that affect dry stacking. IPCC AR6 scenarios (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5) project increases in mean temperatures, changes in precipitation seasonality and more frequent extreme weather events in northern regions (IPCC, 2021–2023; SYKE, 2022). For dry-stacked tailings, this may translate into more intense winter and autumn precipitation, increased rain-on-snow events, higher and earlier meltwater peaks, and more frequent heavy rainfall episodes during the operational lifetime of a facility. In areas underlain by permafrost, warming temperatures and permafrost degradation may alter foundation conditions, drainage patterns and leakage pathways. Thawing of ice-rich layers can reduce bearing capacity and increase settlement, while changes in the active layer thickness affect seasonal moisture dynamics and frost action. These processes introduce additional uncertainty into long-term stability assessments, particularly for facilities designed under historical climatic conditions that may no longer be representative. 4.4 Modeling and knowledge gaps Despite growing interest in dry stacking under northern conditions, there are still significant gaps in the models and data available to support design and risk assessment. Coupled thermo–hydro–mechanical models that capture freezing and thawing processes in filtered tailings remain relatively immature, and their calibration is limited by the scarcity of long-term monitoring data from operating dry-stacked facilities in Arctic regions. Ongoing doctoral work aims to address some of these gaps by combining IPCC AR6 climate scenarios with hydrological modeling tools such as Amanzi-ATS to simulate the response of tailings structures to changing temperature and precipitation regimes, including extreme events and frost-related processes (Tuomela, 2022). Building on frameworks such as Tuomela’s frost susceptibility and leakage risk models, a new scoring system is being developed to evaluate the sensitivity of dry-stacked structures to basal leakage and climate-driven stresses. However, these approaches are still under development and have not yet been widely applied in operational decision-making, underlining the need for further research and validation. 5. POSSIBILITIES: CIRCULARITY, ENERGY AND WATER RECOVERY Beyond reducing water inventories and tailings-related risks, dry stacking can also act
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