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Permafrost Slow-Motion Meltdown MAGAZINE Climate effects 6 No. 4 Living on shifting sands 20 2015 THE CIRCLE Impact of forest fires 24 PERMAFROST SLOW-MOTION MELTDOWN PUBLISHED BY THE WWF GLOBAL ARCTIC PROGRAMME TheCircle0415.indd 1 27.10.15 14:38 THE CIRCLE 4.2015 PERMAFROST Contents EDITORIAL It’s not permanent 3 IN BRIEF 4 TED SCHUUR Climate effects 6 CIRCUMPOLAR STATUS REPORT 8-19 MIKHAIL ZHELEZNIAK and PAVEL KONSTANTINOV Russia 9 CHRIS BURN Canada 11 JONAS ÅKERMAN Sweden 12 BERND ETZELMÜLLER Norway 13 HANNE HVIDTFELDT CHRISTIANSEN Svalbard (Norway) 15 BERND ETZELMÜLLE Iceland 16 STEPHEN D. GURNEY and JUKKA KÄYHKÖ Finland 17 BO ELBERLING Greenland 18 KENJI YOSHIKAWA United States 19 BRONWYN BENKERT Shifting sands – living on permafrost 20 KEVIN SCHAEFER The tipping point 22 JEAN HOLLOWAY The impact of forest fires 24 FUJUN NIU Building on permafrost in the “Third Pole” 26 THE PICTURE 28 The Circle is published quar- Publisher: Editor in Chief: Clive Tesar, COVER: Houses in Shishmaref, terly by the WWF Global Arctic WWF Global Arctic Programme [email protected] Alaska, collapsing due to coastal ero- Programme. Reproduction and 8th floor, 275 Slater St., Ottawa, sion. The melting of permafrost desta- quotation with appropriate credit ON, Canada K1P 5H9. Managing Editor: Becky Rynor, bilizes the shoreline and makes the are encouraged. Articles by non- Tel: +1 613-232-8706 [email protected] earth more vulnerable to erosion. affiliated sources do not neces- Fax: +1 613-232-4181 Photo: Lawrence Hislop. www.grida.no sarily reflect the views or policies Design and production: of WWF. Send change of address Internet: www.panda.org/arctic Film & Form/Ketill Berger, ABOVE: To create their shelter Alaska and subscription queries to the [email protected] marmots burrow into permafrost soil address on the right. We reserve ISSN 2073-980X = The Circle containing tundra vegetation. the right to edit letters for publica- Printed by St. Joseph Communications Photo: Erin McKittrick, Bretwood Higman, Ground Truth Trekking/ Creative Commons tion, and assume no responsibil- Date of publication: ity for unsolicited material. October 2015. Thank you for your interest in The Circle. Many of our subscribers have moved to an e-version. To receive an electronic copy in your email instead of a paper 2 The Circle 4.2015 copy, please write to us at [email protected] and help us reduce our costs and footprint. TheCircle0415.indd 2 27.10.15 14:38 THE CIRCLE 4.2015 EDITORIAL It’s not permanent PERMAFROST AROUND THE ARCTIC is changing. It is warm- ers who live in permafrost areas and by governments and ing virtually everywhere as the climate warms, and in industry who must pay for the increasing infrastructure some places, it’s thawing. This edition of The Circle costs associated with development in the Arctic. A report explores why this is happening, what happens when per- by Fujun Niu illustrates how China has made significant mafrost thaws, how it can be mitigated and why the rest advances in building on this increasingly unstable sur- of the world should be concerned about it. face. But why should the rest of the world care? Changes to permafrost occur within the ground so In 2009, a group of international researchers put they’re challenging to track across the vast areas of the together an estimate of how much carbon is stored in Arctic. We can’t easily use satellite remote sensing, for permafrost regions, drawing on samples from around example, to know what is happening. During the last the Arctic. The number was astonishing: 1670 Pg or International Polar Year, scientists from the International about twice the current amount in the Permafrost Association created a snapshot of permafrost atmosphere. Almost all of this carbon is temperatures recorded in boreholes all across the North. currently in cold storage, but the obvious This work is continuing in the Global Terrestrial Network unknown is whether it can be released, on Permafrost (GTN-P) whose goal is to track changing and if so, how much will it contribute to ground temperatures. You will read more about this vital future global warming? The risk is of a research in our Circumpolar Status Report as each Arctic positive feedback loop in which climate nation brings us up to date on warming causes permafrost in their countries. permafrost thaw and Permafrost is warming rapidly WHAT WE KNOW IS DIS- carbon is released ANTONI LEWKOWICZ in the High Arctic and more TURBING BECAUSE PER- into the atmosphere is a Professor in the slowly where it’s already near either as carbon Department of Geog- 0°C with the extra heat entering MAFROST THAW IS LIKE- dioxide or methane raphy at the Univer- the surface being used to change as the previously sity of Ottawa. He has ground ice into water. Because LY TO BE IRREVERSIBLE frozen organic mat- researched permafrost permafrost responds to climate, ter is broken down in the Arctic and Sub- arctic for nearly 40 these trends are predicted to by microbial action. years and is currently continue over the decades to come as the climate warms. As Kevin Schaefer and Ted Schuur report, President of the Inter- Even if it’s out of sight, permafrost has a way of bring- this increases the concentration of green- national Permafrost ing its thermal state to our attention. Numerous massive house gases in the atmosphere which Association. landslides have developed recently in the Peel Plateau leads to further warming and faster thaw of Canada’s Northwest Territories, apparently triggered of permafrost. by greater summer rainfall. Jean Holloway also tells us There has been a great deal of research on the links in about the escalating effects of increasing numbers of for- this permafrost and carbon release chain in recent years, est fires on permafrost. Meanwhile, the northernmost but it would be fair to say the jury is still out. What we 200 km of the Alaska Highway in the Yukon costs mil- know is disturbing because permafrost thaw is likely to lions of dollars per year to maintain because permafrost be irreversible. On the other hand, it takes time to warm is thawing beneath the road; tourists bumping along in and then thaw permafrost so there is still an opportunity their recreational vehicles as well as highway engineers to act. know that these problems keep coming back. Erosion Members of the Arctic Council know that it’s costly to along coasts with ice-rich permafrost appears to be cope with permafrost. But the price paid by the global increasing, threatening communities across the Arctic. community for accelerating permafrost thaw could well But all of these impacts are chiefly felt by the northern- be far greater. The Circle 4.2015 3 TheCircle0415.indd 3 27.10.15 14:38 IN BRIEF says researchers calculated The $43 trillion US esti- end exploration off Alaska Thawing economic costs by looking mate is in addition to previ- “for the foreseeable future” at the direct effects on gross ous studies, which have put after it failed to find suffi- permafrost could domestic product, as well the economic impacts of cient amounts of oil and gas as indirect effects “such as climate change at more than in the Burger J well to war- cost $43 trillion losses to ecosystems, inunda- $300 trillion by the year rant further exploration but tion from sea level rise, and 2200. Eighty per cent of eco- it has not given up its Arctic by end of century an increase in the chance of nomic impacts will be felt in leases. “Shell continues to climate catastrophe.” developing countries. see important exploration A NEW STUDY estimates emis- Deaths from heat stroke potential in the basin, and sions from thawing perma- in Europe are one specific the area is likely to ultimately frost will cost US$43 trillion example of the health-related Shell stops Arctic be of strategic importance in lost agriculture, ecosys- effects of thawing perma- to Alaska and the US,” said tems and health impacts by frost. Hope says until this activity after Marvin Odum, president the end of this century. study there have been no of Shell USA.The company The study, released estimates on the cost of those ‘disappointing’ has spent about US $7bn on by Cambridge University and emissions on the economy. Arctic offshore development the National Snow and Ice “This is just one more in the Chukchi and Beaufort Data Centre, says permafrost factor that indicates that tests seas. is believed to contain 1,700 we really need to do some- ROYAL DUTCH SHELL has WWF opposes drilling in gigatonnes – each gigatonne thing,” says researcher Kevin stopped Arctic oil and gas the Chukchi Sea, given the is a billion tonnes – of car- Schaefer, who worked on the exploration off the coast of environmental and cultural bon. When permafrost thaws, project. He says the only way Alaska after “disappointing” values of this pristine and carbon dioxide and methane to stop the permafrost from results from a key well in the complex marine ecosystem, locked inside is released. thawing is to reduce emis- Chukchi Sea. crucial for wildlife, fisheries Co-author Chris Hope sions. The company said it would and local people. “The world THE GLOBAL Terrestrial allows scientists to check Permafrost data available to all Network for Permafrost has climate model predictions launched a website contain- against observations from ing ground-temperature across the Arctic. The data data that spans the entire can be used in practical Arctic region. This global planning of infrastructure collaboration of universities development in regions with and research institutes ena- permafrost, for example to bles anyone to try their hand study how permafrost reacts at being an Arctic scientist to the construction of build- or engineer.
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