What secrets lie beneath the frozen ground?
Ice is without doubt one of the first casualties of climate change, but the effects of our warming world are not only limited to ice melting on Earth’s surface. Ground that has been frozen for thousands of years, called permafrost, is thawing – adding to the climate crisis and causing serious issues for local communities.
Scientists estimate that the world’s permafrost holds almost double the amount of carbon that is currently in the atmosphere. When permafrost warms and thaws, it releases methane and carbon dioxide, adding these greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and making global warming even worse.
While permafrost cannot be directly observed from space, a lot of different types of satellite data, along with ground measurements and modelling, allow scientists to paint a picture of permafrost ground conditions.
Credits: ESA – European Space Agency
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Go back to the 1400's when the entire arctic ice cap was melted . So nothing new here.
Ooo ooo I can answer that. It's not so much a secret though. It's methane – a simply brilliant greenhouse gas, many times as potent as CO2. As methane comes out the global warming speeds up. So that's good – NOT!
Excellent video, but when the speaker says "exasperating", the correct word was "exacerbating". It would be helpful to fix that.
I saw some of this permafrost melting myself while kayaking the Mackenzie R. in Canada as well as some melting of the Pingos (solid ice core hills) when I reached the delta. ESA's c2m mission is scheduled to launch in 2026. This should provide very valuable information about CO2. Best of luck.
Its too late to worry. The temperature rise is unstoppable.
Don’t know about you, but of all the hazards, what unsettles me most is potential release of microbial pathogens that have not circulated for 20,000 or even 500,000 or more – years 😳
The 70% land of Russia & 50% land of Canada have occupied by permafrost which reason they are now willing to become an Aussie
We are two Bangladeshi helpless poor brothers of an Aussie woman / Aussie Bangladeshi woman
Oh Canadians (North Americans), Russians (Europeans) : Please help us
So boring.
It's the current fauna and flora's ability to live in a hotter World , maybe another factor , the Michalovitch cycle will kick in , freeze or heat the World ..
Do we really need the distracting background music?
First of all, it stinks really bad when the permafrost melts. Think of peat.
What is beneath the perma frost is what was there before the area was covered in ice