By combining demography data with permafrost maps, researchers provide a first count of the population on permafrost and predict its imminent decline.
permafrost
Posted inNews
Vicuña Poop Nourishes “Dung Gardens” High in the Andes
The excrement delivers nutrients like phosphorus and nitrogen, kick-starting islands of vegetation at the edge of the cryosphere.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Thawing Permafrost May Cause Streams to Cool
Permafrost thawing associated with climate warming increases contributions to streamflow by deeper, cooler groundwater flow paths, which may result in lower summer stream temperatures.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Predicting the Next Big Frost Quake
Frost quakes occur in boreal regions when rapidly expanding ice underground causes frozen soils to fracture. A recent frost quake in Finland has given scientists a rare look into how they form.
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Wildfires Trigger Long-Term Permafrost Thawing
Researchers used satellite data to trace ground subsidence in a permafrost-rich region in eastern Siberia following a wildfire.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Downhill from Here: Landscape Positions and Greenhouse Emissions
In comparing soils from two tundra wetland landscape positions, landscape position is found to matter, and toeslopes are associated with higher greenhouse gas production.
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Experiments Reveal How Permafrost Carbon Becomes Carbon Dioxide
Field samples from Alaska show how sunlight and iron convert permafrost carbon to carbon dioxide. Climate models ignore this process.
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The Ticking Time Bomb of Arctic Permafrost
Arctic infrastructure is under threat from thawing permafrost.
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Reindeer Could Trample Permafrost Thaw
Thick, fluffy snow traps summer’s heat in the top layers of Arctic permafrost even as winter chills the air above. Grazing animals stomp that snow flat.
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Peatlands Are Drying Out Across Europe
Peatlands are some of the world’s largest reservoirs of soil carbon, but new research finds that in Europe they are drying out, putting them at risk of turning from carbon sinks to carbon sources.