Arctic heat waves and thawing permafrost worsen climate threat ipolitics.ca - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ipolitics.ca Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
But with northern Canada warming about three times as fast as the rest of the world, climate change threatens the permanence of vast stretches of this frozen ground and the ecosystems and communities it supports. For the people living in the subarctic Dehcho region of the Northwest Territories, the changes have been stark. “Our Elders definitely noticed a real change in how things look,” Dehcho First Nations Grand Chief Gladys Norwegian told The Narwhal in an interview. “They don’t have to be scientists to know, they just feel it and see it.” While the impacts are felt most acutely in the North, permafrost thaw has implications for the global climate as well.
Share In Canada s North, landscapes such as caribou habitat found in Yukon s Tombstone Territorial Park, seen here, are increasingly at risk of dramatic change as permafrost melts. Scientists are now researching what s known as the permafrost carbon feedback loop, in which melting permafrost releases greenhouse gases that further amplify climate change. Photo: Jimmy Thomson / The Narwhal
In-Depth
Fighting the feedback loop: why scientists are sounding the alarm on Canada’s melting permafrost
Nearly half of Canada’s land mass lies above permafrost. As it thaws, greenhouse gases stored for centuries in the frozen ground are released and once-stable land is susceptible to collapse