By the end of this century, permafrost in the rapidly warming Arctic will likely emit as much carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere as a large industrial nation, and potentially more than the U.S. has emitted since the start of the industrial revolution. More information on the findings of an international team inculding scientists from the Alfred Wegener Institute can be found in this press release by the Northern Arizona University...

New Study
As a result of global warming, permafrost regions around the world are thawing now. As they do, climate-relevant greenhouse gases containing carbon (carbon dioxide, methane) and nitrogen (nitrous [...] climate forecasts. Whereas substantial research has been conducted on the carbon reservoirs in permafrost, we still know comparatively little about nitrogen. A team of experts led by the Alfred Wegener

Permafrost Thaw Action Group The Permafrost Thaw Action Group was part of the Terrestrial Multidisciplinary distributed Observatories for the Study of Arctic Connections (T-MOSAiC). Together with MOSAiC [...] d collection of field data for quantifying permafrost thaw. It addresses the need for integrated observations of multiple connected components of permafrost landscapes, including soils, snow, and vegetation [...] vegetation. Illustration of the standarized permafrost monitoring protocol. The five spheres (snow, water, permafrost, vegetation and soil) with the associated parameters, measurement modes, and observation

Permafrost
How is climate change affecting the permanently frozen soils of the Arctic? What will the consequences be for the global climate, human beings, and ecosystems? And what can be done to stop [...] an AWI group led by Moritz Langer has now created an interactive map of the past and future of permafrost. Both publications arrive at the same conclusion: to put a stop to the dangerous trends in these

Permafrost
Arctic coasts are characterized by sea ice, permafrost and ground ice. This makes them particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which is already accelerating rapid coastal

Project "Permafrost Change" For most people, permafrost is a distant phenomenon that seems to have little to do with their own lives, making it hard for them to relate to. With the help of the resources [...] people have the chance to see, hear, touch and smell permafrost, thanks to original archaeological artefacts from the Ice Age and hands-on permafrost experimentation boxes. More over visitors can use a [...] virtual permafrost world. Lastly, ‘before-and-after’ lenticular images, together with video and audio recordings from expeditions to the Arctic, will help illustrate the thawing of the permafrost, and the

of glaciers and ice sheets Floating Ice: sea, river, and lake ice Seasonal snow cover Changing permafrost Polar coastlines Oceanography of polar seas Hydrology of inland waters Polar land cover and land

like what we now see in eastern Siberia. Today’s Arctic, with ice-covered Greenland, Siberian permafrost and sea ice at the North Pole, is a holdover of that glacial world. But for how much longer? As

reach remote lake sites. In summer we use helicopters, because the absence of roads on thawing permafrost does not allow the use of cars. Yakutia 2016 Bykovsky 2017 Chukotka 2018 Polar Terrestrial Env

Methane Emissions from Arctic Wetlands (AirMeth) Fig.6: Polar5 flying at low lever over Arctic permafrost. (Photo: Alfred-Wegener-Institut) The atmospheric concentration of methane, a potent greenhouse [...] pattern is shown in Fig. 3. Starting from Barrow, long low level flight legs are flown over the permafrost wetland with ascents and descents interspersed for vertical soundings of the boundary layer structure [...] east to west during which the methane concentration accummulates in the boundary layer. Fig.1: Permafrost wetland of the Arctic Coastal Plain near Barrow (Alaska) (Photo: Alfred-Wegener-Institut) Fig.2: