permafrost

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Beneath Svalbard's permafrost, millions of cubic meters of methane are trapped—and scientists have now learned that it can migrate beneath the cold seal of the permafrost and escape. A large-scale escape could create a cycle of warming that would send methane emissions skyrocketing: warming thaws the permafrost, causing more gas to escape, allowing more permafrost to thaw and more gas to be…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The Altai Mountains are located in the eastern hinterland of Central Asia, bordering Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan. Chinese Altai Mountains, located in the north of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, belongs to the southern slope of the middle section of Altai Mountains. As an accumulation area of major cryosphere elements, cryosphere changes in the Chinese Altai Mountains have…

At first glance, nematodes are unassuming roundworms—but don’t underestimate them. In 2018 scientists announced they had discovered and revived two types of microscopic nematodes found in the Siberian permafrost, estimating they may have been 42,000 years old. Now these roundworms are the subject of more research, which posits that one of these nematode varieties represents a new species, dubbed Panagrolaimus kolymaensis for the Kolyma River where they were found. The new research, published on July 27 in the journal…

Graphical abstract. Credit: Science Bulletin (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2023.04.037 In a warming climate, the sustainability of cryospheric meltwater on the Tibetan Plateau has raised concerns because of its importance for the fragile ecosystem in the headwater regions and the dense populations in the downstream. Existing studies mainly focused on glacier melt and snow melt on the Tibetan Plateau, which are above the ground…

Streamflow gages (observed, n = 74) by permafrost coverage percentages with infilled gages (n = 55, open circles), and GloFAS v3.1 watersheds (gray circles, n = 958) shown over (Obu et al., 2019) permafrost zones for North America. Credit: Frontiers in Water (2023). DOI: 10.3389/frwa.2023.1099660 Rising temperatures and changes in precipitation are driving increases to streamflow in areas of high-latitude North America where…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Climate change and engineering disturbance cause degradation of permafrost, which affects infrastructure stability and transportation safety. Two-phase closed thermosyphons (TPCTs) are widely used to tackle external disturbances by cooling the permafrost stratum in permafrost engineering. However,…

Graphical abstract. Credit: Science of The Total Environment (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163355 As an important indicator of climate change in cold regions, changes in lake area are important for understanding hydrological and ecological processes in cold regions. The interplay between lakes and permafrost is complex.…

CLIMATEWIRE | Fox, Alaska, is a tiny town, but on Monday it hosted one of the Pentagon’s senior officials for a unique tour. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks was there to see 360-foot-long tunnel that military engineers dug into the frozen ground more than 50 years ago. Its purpose is to help scientists and Pentagon officials better understand permafrost — and its research is growing in importance as the world warms. Climate change is rapidly altering the Arctic landscape, in particular the permafrost that serves…

CLIMATEWIRE | Balmy, tropical Hawaii sounds like the last place on Earth one might expect to find snow and ice. Yet the tiptops of some of the island chain’s tallest mountains often fall below freezing in the winter, welcoming in a blanket of magical snow. That’s not all. Near the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest peak at nearly 14,000 feet, there’s another surprise: two patches of rare tropical permafrost, a type of continuously frozen soil most often associated with the frosty Arctic. Mauna Kea is the only place…

Credit: Environmental Science & Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c07274 Permafrost in the Tibetan Plateau contains a large amount of soil organic carbon (SOC). Climate change leads to rapid permafrost degradation and thermal collapse, which can change the microgeomorphology and soil physical and chemical properties. Previous studies have proved that…