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Formerly a land of ice and snow, the Arctic tundra is starting to get a bit more temperate. As the region warms, lakes that have been frozen for centuries have thawed and the permafrost, soil that formerly stayed frozen year-round, is softening. It might seem that the heat wave is an invitation for residents to blow the dust off their bathing suits but, in reality, it is an alarming sign of immediacy of climate change.
Of course, global warming is altering the landscape and disrupting life all over the world, but melting tundra produces a particularly dire side effect. As the permafrost thaws, it actually releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. In fact, research has found that it releases a lot of methane. And the gas is not only released in the warm summer months. The refreezing of the ground in the autumn actually sends more methane into the atmosphere.
Then there are the problems that this thaw causes for the residents, both animal and human, of the region. Hoofed animals like reindeer are having trouble finding food and escaping predators during long periods of freezing rain. People's homes, built on now-shifting ground, are literally sinking. Katie Walter, leader of a US-Russian team studying the lakes of Siberia, explained that:
If you just take the bus down the street or walk down the street even near the airport or in lots of parts of Yakutsk, old houses have sunk into the ground and the window panes are now under the surface of the ground…The period when the ground is frozen is usually the best time to travel over the ground…but it's warming up, so there [are] fewer days of the year when you can travel over the frozen ground, because in the summer it becomes really marshy, and it's hard to travel in it.
Of course, a permanent solution to this problem can only come from a halt, or at least reduction, in the rate of global warming. We all have our eyes on the U.N. climate summit to be held in December, but in the meantime, for sake of the reindeer, the people of Yakutsk, and, ultimately, for yourself, do what you can to reduce your carbon footprint.
Find out more about environmental politics and issues in Focus Earth: May 16, 2009: Coral Reefs in Trouble and Melting Tundra.
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