Julie Brigham-Grette and Beth Caissie Permafrost Fragile Nature of Permanently (or not so permanently) Frozen Ground Presented by Julie Brigham-Grette and Beth Caissie

Continuous Discontinuous

Ground cracks Water or sand fall in Process repeats many times for many years http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/permafrosttunnel/1g3_Massive_Ice.htm

Massive ice ices and ground ice Beth Caissie, from Russia Elaborate stone circles B Hallett, Svalbard, NGS

“Cold is powerful. It freezes subsurface water, which can force frozen ground upward to form cone-shaped mounds with cores of ice—pingos—on Canada’s Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“High above the treeline in Swiss National Park, icy soil warms in the summer sun, slipping over layers of earth like icing dripping down the side of a cake.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Permafrost terrain encompasses vast reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. In Iceland’s central highlands, braids of summer meltwater flow from a nearby glacier and flank a cluster of ragged ponds. Perched on impermeable ground, the shallow pools spread, likely shaped by prevailing winds.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Darker than surrounding Canadian tundra, ponds absorb more heat from the sun, amplify their own melting, and over time thread together into beaded streams. As the Earth warms, its vast frozen lands are being transformed—and we are only starting to grasp the consequences.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Thawing and refreezing each year, an active layer of soil lies over permafrost. Fine sediments and coarse gravels on the surface shift and tilt as the active layer expands and contracts, sorting themselves over centuries into labyrinths of circles and lines—decoration for an Arctic island.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Ice wedges penetrate deep into frozen soil, chiseling tundra into room-size polygons—a signature texture of permafrost landscapes. Climate change may be marking the Canadian Arctic, too, as meltwater erodes the edges of some polygons and deepens pools in their centers.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Warming waters may have formed the embayment expanding across an icy spit of land in the Canadian Arctic. When carbon-rich blocks of thawing permafrost crumble into the water, they decompose and can release potent greenhouse gases such as methane.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“In Iceland, where volcanic fire does battle with glacial ice, green folds of hummocky terrain and a reddish slash of oxidized soil rise above a black expanse of newer lava.” Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

“Drunken Forests” http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/landscapes/details_e.php?photoID=509 http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=172095

Damage from Melting Permafrost F. Nelson http://nsidc.org/sotc/permafrost.html Cherskii, Siberia Fairbanks, AK F. Nelson http://www.flickr.com/photos/73423050@N00/912440368/ http://www.klimanotizen.de/html/newsletter_14e.html

Permafrost damage in Fairbanks, AK and Tibet http://www.globalwarmingimages.net/gallery/index/disp_media/429/gallery/perma_frost/0/ “Thawing permafrost can render railroad tracks useless, as seen in this photo from the northern Tibetan Plateau taken in the early 1960s.” Credit: Tingjun Zhang http://www.livescience.com/environment/041222_permafrost.html

Engineering Solutions http://www.soilsalaska.com/Construction.htm Refrigeration of ground Build on “stilts” (c)2005 Derek Ramsey http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System

Carbon Dioxide and Methane: The last 400 thousand years IPCC Projections 2100 AD CO2 (450-1100) CH4 (1500-3700) 385 Petit et al. (1999) Nature 399:429-436

Thawing permafrost forecast to release CO2 and CH4 -- huge areas of Siberia are a gigantic source of additional green house gases, as across many parts of the Arctic Karen Frey, images.

CH4 CH4 Karen Frey; image

Katey Walter’s Videos http://www. alaska