Exclusive: Some Arctic Ground No Longer Freezing--Even in Winter

New data from two Arctic sites suggest some surface layers are no longer freezing. If that continues, greenhouse gases from permafrost could accelerate climate change.

BY CRAIG WELCH
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KATIE ORLINSKY

PUBLISHED AUGUST 20, 2018

CHERSKIY, RUSSIA - Nikita Zimov was teaching students to do ecological fieldwork in northern Siberia when he stumbled on a disturbing clue that the frozen land might be thawing far faster than expected.

Zimov, like his father, Sergey Zimov, has spent years running a research station that tracks climate change in the rapidly warming Russian Far East. So when students probed the ground and took soil samples amid the mossy hummocks and larch forests near his home, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Nikita Zimov suspected something wasn't right.



Sergey Zimov measures permafrost levels with his granddaughters near the Northeast Science Station which
he founded in Cherskiy, Russia, along the Kolyma River. About an hour away is Zimov's large-scale scientific
experiment Pleistocene Park, which he runs with his son, Nikita Zimov. The two believe that by recreating the
ecosystem of the Pleistocene era, which was dominated by grasslands and large mammals, they can slow
permafrost thaw.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KATIE ORLINSKY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

In April he sent a team of workers out with heavy drills to be sure. They bored into the soil a few feet down and found thick, slushy mud. Zimov said that was impossible. Cherskiy, his community of 3,000 along the Kolyma River, is one of the coldest spots on Earth. Even in late spring, ground below the surface should be frozen solid.

Every winter across the Arctic, the top few inches or feet of soil and rich plant matter freezes up before thawing again in summer. Beneath this active layer of ground extending hundreds of feet deeper sits continuously frozen earth called permafrost, which, in places, has stayed frozen for millennia.

More:
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/08/news-arctic-permafrost-may-thaw-faster-than-expected/

On edit, sorry I had to add this photo, from the article. Have never seen anything like it:



The Batagaika Crater in the town of Batagay, Russia, is known as the "hell crater" or the "gateway to the underworld.” Over 300 feet deep and more than half a mile long, the depression is one of the largest in the world. Scientists believe it started forming in the 1960s when the permafrost under the area began to thaw after nearby forests were cleared.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KATIE ORLINSKY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC