The Siberian Permafrost is Melting
And It's Not Looking Good
About ⅔ of Russia is covered by permafrost, permanently frozen ground that never thaws. It runs from just below the surface for sometimes thousands of meters underground in Siberia. The permPermafrosafrost is kept frozen by the region’s frigid temperatures.
Permafrost, when frozen, is hard as concrete so most buildings are built without foundation. Most buildings however sit on stilts that rise them about a meter off the ground. If they were directly on the ground, heat from the buildings would thaw the permafrost beneath, turning their foundations into mush. The shifting ground in Russia is already posing enormous consequences, puting roads, buildings, and infrastructure at risk across Siberia. Older builds are beginning to crack significantly, giving a preview of what happens when the permafrost below begins to melt.
Siberia is warming and warming faster than almost anywhere else in the world. According to Russian government data, Russia’s average temperatures are rising 2 and a half times the global average. This warming is causing permafrost to thaw, creating swamps and lakes as well as strange landscapes. Some projections suggest that even in moderate scenarios, a third to a quarter of northern Russia's, more specifically Yakutia, permafrost will melt by the end of the century.
Scientists are worried that the melting permafrost will also pose a profound treat for the rest of the world. “The frozen soil holds hundreds of billions of tons of greenhouse gases, like methane and CO2, which are released as it slowly thaws.” As the thawing unlocks more gases, they will further warm the planet, triggering more melting. The amount of gases within the permafrost dwarf those already in the atmosphere put by humans. The fear of a cataclysmic feedback loop has led some scientists to call Siberia’s melting permafrost a possible “ methane time bomb. (abc)
Batagay, an urban locality in Yakutia, is the largest thaw slump on the planet. Known to locals as the “gateway to the underworld.” “Once just a gully on a slope logged in the 1960s, the scar has expanded year by year, as the permafrost thaws and meltwater carries off the sediment. Now more than 900 meters wide, it epitomizes the vulnerability of permafrost in the Arctic, where temperatures have shot up twice as fast as the global average over the past 30 years.” (science.org) On a more positive note, it also serves as a time capsule which is seducing scientists with its snapshots of ancient climates and ecosystems.Dates from ice and soil gathered at Batagay shows that it holds the oldest exposed permafrost in Eurasia, spanning the past 650,000 years, according to Thomas Opel, a paleoclimatologist. This could reveal how permafrost and surface vegetation responded to past warm climates. “It gives us a window into times when permafrost was stable, and times when it was eroding,” Opel says.
