Latest Permafrost Stories

A team of geoscientists from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) using newly available remote-sensing technology has achieved unprecedented detail in quantifying subtle, long-period changes in the water levels of shallow lakes and ponds in hard-to-reach Arctic wetlands. Analysis comparing time-lapsed, high-resolution satellite imagery of the Ahnewetut Wetlands in Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska, revealed an accelerated loss of surface water in shallow thaw lakes and ponds over a recent...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online More evidence is pointing to the nightmare scenario that global warming is taking a toll on our planet. Oxford University scientists say that a global temperature rise of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit could thaw the ground over a large area of Siberia, threatening the release of carbon from soil. If the thawing of Siberia's permafrost occurs, it could see that over 1,000 gigatons of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane are...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Editor's note (Feb 16): This story earlier reported that thermokarst failures were occurring do to permafrost melt. However, permafrost doesn't melt, it thaws. The changes have been made to this story to reflect that. Researchers studying Arctic thermokarst failures in Alaska were alarmed to find climate-warming carbon dioxide gas may be releasing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate. This release is being caused by...

Berkeley Lab research could lead to a better understanding of the Arctic ecosystem’s impact on the planet's climate What does pulling a radar-equipped sled across the Arctic tundra have to do with improving our understanding of climate change? It’s part of a new way to explore the little-known world of permafrost soils, which store almost as much carbon as the rest of the world’s soils and about twice as much as is in the atmosphere. The new approach combines several...

University of Alaska Fairbanks University of Alaska Fairbanks researcher Vladimir Romanovsky is one of four scientists who authored a report released today by the United Nations Environmental Programme. The report, "Policy Implications of Warming Permafrost," seeks to highlight the potential hazards of carbon dioxide and methane emissions from warming permafrost, which have not thus far been included in climate-prediction modeling. The report notes that permafrost covers almost a...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online As global warming extends its balmy fingers further into the Arctic regions, defrosting permafrost could release up to 44 billion tons of nitrogen and 850 tons of carbon into the atmosphere, according to a new study from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The doubling of atmospheric carbon that would result from such an unprecedented thaw figures to impact ecosystems, the atmosphere, the Earth’s lakes and rivers, the researchers said...

Watershed covers roughly 20 percent of Canada, including oil sands; The Mackenzie may discharge more water into the Arctic than the St. Lawrence into the Atlantic The governance of Canada's massive Mackenzie River Basin holds enormous national but also global importance due to the watershed's impact on the Arctic Ocean, international migratory birds and climate stability, say experts convening a special forum on the topic. "Relevant parties in western Canada have recognized the need for...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A recent study of the Antarctic Ice Sheet suggests that it could be a largely overlooked source of the potent greenhouse gas methane. An international team of scientists from the University of Bristol, the University of California, Santa Cruz, the University of Alberta, Edmonton, and the University of Utrecht, demonstrate that old organic matter in sedimentary basins located beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been converted to...

The ancient reserves of methane gas seeping from the melting Arctic ice cap told Jeff Chanton and fellow researchers what they already knew: As the permafrost thaws, there is a release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that causes climate warming. The trick was figuring out how much, said Chanton, the John W. Winchester Professor of Oceanography at Florida State University. The four-member team — whose findings were published in the respected journal Nature Geoscience —...

Brett Smith for RedOrbit.com The edges of glaciers and Arctic permafrost are where most of the evidence of global warming can be seen, but scientists have recently been traveling to these remote locations for a different reason. Researchers from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks just published a study in the online edition of Nature Geoscience showing that methane trapped under arctic lake ice for millions of years is now being released by the melting ice. The team used both aerial...