When permafrost is perma-lost, the global carbon cycle is altered and coastal ecosystem are affected In a first-of-its-kind study, a team of researchers led by geoscientist Michael Rawlins at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown in fine-grained detail what happens when Arctic permafrost thaws. Focusing on a Wisconsin-sized area of Alaska’s North Slope containing hundreds […]
Permafrost thawing may allow greenhouse gases to escape at a much higher rate than previously thought, and this could further accelerate climate change. Experiments by University of Leeds researchers, published in AGU journal Earth’s Future, have shown that thawing of permafrost makes it between 25 and 100 times more permeable, allowing more climate change forcing […]
The climate-driven spread of beaver ponds in Alaska’s Arctic accelerates the effects of a warming environment by causing pond-adjacent permafrost to thaw and by increasing the amount of liquid water present during winter. Those are the key findings of the first comprehensive, on-the-ground assessment of the northward migration of beavers. The research was led by […]
In a new study, a team of geologists and biologists led by CU Boulder resurrected ancient microbes that had been trapped in ice—in some cases for around 40,000 years. The study is a showcase for the planet’s permafrost. That’s the name for a frozen mix of soil, ice and rocks that underlies nearly a quarter of […]