The multi-layer soil module of the hydro-thermodynamic soil-vegetation scheme (HTSVS), which recently was implemented in CCSM, deals with soil freezing/thawing and the (vertical) heat- and water-transfer processes (including the Richards-equation) based on the principles of the linear thermodynamics of irreversible processes. It was evaluated by means of long-term permafrost observations at Barrow, Alaska. In doing so, HTSVS was driven by hourly data of meteorological observations made at Barrow. The evaluation showed that the parameterization of thermal conductivity used by HTSVS provided too high values, for which it was replaced by a parameterization typically used in the permafrost research community. Re-evaluation using the new parameterization showed that this integrative joint venture lead to an improvement of soil temperature predictions.