Alaska is warming faster than any other U.S. state, and that’s causing problems, a team of bridge engineers and social scientists explains. The infrastructure bill in Congress would offer some help.
According to recent research, deep beneath the Arctic's permafrost hides Cold War-era nuclear waste and deadly viruses that might soon be exposed to the surface due to rapid-melting ice.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons) Ponds resulting from thawing permafrost in the Yamal Peninsula in northwest Siberia were captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on 27 August 2018. In Earth’s cold regions, much of the sub-surface ground is frozen. Permafrost is frozen soil, rock, or sediment – sometimes hundreds of meters thick. When permafrost warms and thaws, it releases methane and carbon dioxide, adding these greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and making global warming even worse.
Methane Emissions from Thawing Permafrost in Siberia after 2020 Heatwave
The limestones in Siberia s two most affected permafrost regions were formed during the Paleozoic era way back 541 million years ago. Most previous studies only looked at methane emissions from dead plants and animals and did not consider limestones.
but just as alarming to scientists here in alaska is what s happe b ground the warming earth is literally changing what s beneath our feet. for most of alaska that would be permafrost, a frozen layer of earth made up of soil and gravel the permafrost is thawing raising concerns the releas of carbon dioxide and methane could lead to even more warming just outside fairbanks i venture into a place where time is literally frozen the army corps of engineers permafrost tunnels where 40,000 years of earth s history are studied, ice, ancient grass and woolly mammoth bones is that a bone there good eye. that s a mammoth bone. reporter: the tunnels originally built in the 60s to study underground construction need to feel how cold it is. yeah, that s it feels cold. that s solid ice. reporter: now that thawing permafrost is heating roads and sinking
many of our military installations are on the coast. around norfolk, high tides and storms increasingly flood parts of our navy base and an air base. in alaska, thawing permafrost is damaging facilities. out west wildfires could threaten training areas our troops depend on. so politicians who say they care about military readiness ought to care about this as well. the ed show recently featured in our climate change series, the naval base in norfolk which the president was talking about. we heard firsthand how climate change is impacting military readiness. naval station norfolk is the largest naval base in the world. sea level impacts the ability of the base to carry out its mission. for example, it can interfere with the peers where the spiers where