The gaping hole at the edge of the tundra lake was the size of a football field and impossible to miss. As our helicopter circled into position to land, we could see two men standing on the edge of the crater. They were dwarfed by the enormity of this slumped land stripped of vegetation.

During the past 50 years arctic temperatures have risen progressively. As the Arctic's once permanently frozen ground, called permafrost, thaws, the ice within melts. The soil on top collapses, leaving pits and sunken landscapes called thermokarsts.

These landscape failures can swallow buildings and buckle roads, which make them a serious issue for planners. But it's what thermokarsts "exhale" that interests UAF biogeochemist Jay Jones, a researcher for the Institute of Arctic Biology. He studies the interactions between the biological, geological and chemical parts of an ecosystem.

"The big deal with thermokarsts is that their formation can trigger the sudden release of large amounts of carbon and methane from permafrost into the atmosphere," said Jones, one of several scientists and students working on the thermokarst that day.

Permafrost soils in boreal and arctic ecosystems store almost twice as much carbon as is currently present in the atmosphere. The bulk of this carbon comes from thousands of years of accumulated plants and animals. If it's released, it could have significant climate-altering effects.

"Instead of small amounts of carbon being gradually released from permafrost over long timescales, say, hundreds of years," said Jones, " … huge amounts of carbon are being released into the atmosphere over just a couple of decades."
 

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Comment on this story

April 2, 2010 10:01 PM

Great story Marie!