Permafrost Fragile Nature of Permanently (or not so permanently) Frozen Ground Presented by Julie Brigham-Grette and Beth Caissie Julie Brigham-Grette

PermafrostPermafrostFragile Nature of Permanently Fragile Nature of Permanently

(or not so permanently) Frozen Ground(or not so permanently) Frozen Ground

Presented byPresented by Julie Brigham-Grette and Beth CaissieJulie Brigham-Grette and Beth Caissie

ContinuousDiscontinuous

http://www.crrel.usace.army.mil/permafrosttunnel/1g3_Massive_Ice.htm

Ground cracks

Water or sand fall in

Process repeats many times for many years

Beth Caissie, from Russia

B Hallett, Svalbard, NGS

Massive ice ices and ground ice

Elaborate stone circles

“Cold is powerful. It freezes subsurface water, which can force frozen ground upward to form cone-shaped mounds with cores of ice—pingos—on Canada’s Tuktoyaktuk Peninsula.”

http://tectonic.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2007-12/permafrost/bernard-edmaler-photography.html

Photograph by Bernhard Edmaier

“High above the treeline in Swiss National Park, icy soil warms in the summer sun, slipping over layers of earth like icing dripping down the side of a cake.”



“Permafrost terrain encompasses vast reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. In Iceland’s central highlands, braids of summer meltwater flow from a nearby glacier and flank a cluster of ragged ponds. Perched on impermeable ground, the shallow pools spread, likely shaped by prevailing winds.”



“Darker than surrounding Canadian tundra, ponds absorb more heat from the sun, amplify their own melting, and over time thread together into beaded streams. As the Earth warms, its vast frozen lands are being transformed—and we are only starting to grasp the consequences.”



“Thawing and refreezing each year, an active layer of soil lies over permafrost. Fine sediments and coarse gravels on the surface shift and tilt as the active layer expands and contracts, sorting themselves over centuries into labyrinths of circles and lines—decoration for an Arctic island.”



“Ice wedges penetrate deep into frozen soil, chiseling tundra into room-size polygons—a signature texture of permafrost landscapes. Climate change may be marking the Canadian Arctic, too, as meltwater erodes the edges of some polygons and deepens pools in their centers.”



“Warming waters may have formed the embayment expanding across an icy spit of land in the Canadian Arctic. When carbon-rich blocks of thawing permafrost crumble into the water, they decompose and can release potent greenhouse gases such as methane.”



“In Iceland, where volcanic fire does battle with glacial ice, green folds of hummocky terrain and a reddish slash of oxidized soil rise above a black expanse of newer lava.”



“Drunken Forests”

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=172095

http://gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/landscapes/details_e.php?photoID=509

Damage from Melting PermafrostF. Nelson

http://www.klimanotizen.de/html/newsletter_14e.html

http://nsidc.org/sotc/permafrost.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/73423050@N00/912440368/

Cherskii, Siberia

Fairbanks, AK

Permafrost damage in Fairbanks,

AK and Tibet

“Thawing permafrost can render railroad tracks useless, as seen in this photo from the northern Tibetan Plateau taken in the early 1960s.” Credit: Tingjun Zhang

http://www.livescience.com/environment/041222_permafrost.html

http://www.globalwarmingimages.net/gallery/index/disp_media/429/gallery/perma_frost/0/

Engineering Solutions

• Refrigeration of ground

• Build on “stilts”(c)2005 Derek Ramsey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System

http://www.soilsalaska.com/Construction.htm

Ammonia NH3 refrigeration(temp and pressure driven)

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/ammonia_refrigeration/ammonia/index.html

IPCC Projections2100 AD

CO2 (450-1100)CH4 (1500-3700)

Petit et al. (1999) Nature 399:429-436

50100150200250300350400

400

800

1200

1600

180

240

300

360

kyr BP

Today

Vostok Ice Core

389

Carbon Dioxide and Methane: The last 400 thousand years

Karen Frey, images.

Thawing permafrost forecast to release CO2 and CH4 -- huge areas of Siberia are a gigantic source of additional green house gases, as across many parts of the Arctic

Karen Frey; image

CH4

CH4

CH4

CH4

CH4

CH4

CH4

CH4

Shakova et al, 2010, Science 327 Methane venting from East Siberian Arctic Shelf

Katey Walter’s Videoshttp://www.alaska.edu/uaf/cem/ine/walter/videopage.xml

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Permafrost Fragile Nature of Permanently (or not so permanently) Frozen Ground Presented by Julie Brigham-Grette and Beth Caissie Julie Brigham-Grette