According to foreign media reports, the latest research results show that the continuous rise in global temperature will lead to accelerated thawing of the frozen ground in the Arctic, while residents living in the permafrost (also known as permafrost) face threats such as house cracking, road bends and pipeline ruptures at any time.
▲ In Siberian cities such as Yakutsk, Russia, the thawing of permafrost has led to the softening of the foundation and damaged the buildings in the city According to the Chinese Science Daily
Permafrost is a layer of soil and stone that continues to freeze for many years and requires an average annual temperature of less than zero degrees Celsius to form. The area of permafrost on Earth is about 20% of the land area, mainly distributed in alaska, Greenland, Canada and Siberia in the northern hemisphere. About 5 million people are reported to live in cities on the Arctic permafrost.
Permafrost urban crisis: thawing permafrost and unstable foundations
"The land is melting in front of us." A resident living in Alaska said in an interview with foreign media that he could clearly feel that the land under his feet was changing. Kaare Sikuaq Erickson, an Alaskan government official, also said that everyone living in a permafrost city faces a huge existential crisis.
▲ The global temperature change chart displayed on the official website of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
Studies have shown that global climate change is causing temperatures in the Arctic to rise two to four times faster than in other parts of the planet. Affected by climate warming, parts of the Arctic permafrost have gradually thawed, causing a series of natural disasters including landslides, floods, subsidence and so on. Data from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) shows that from 1880 to 2020, the global average temperature has generally risen. In 2020, the average global temperature has risen by 1.02 degrees Celsius from the previous year. Scientists point out that warming by more than 1.5 degrees Celsius means that people, wildlife and ecosystems are likely to suffer more severe consequences from climate change, with extreme weather occurring more frequently. If global warming exceeds 2 degrees Celsius, the polar ice sheets will disintegrate and sea levels will rise by nearly 10 meters.
In addition to natural disasters, the gradual thawing of the permafrost caused by warming will also have a significant impact on the urban infrastructure on the permafrost. Erickson said: "Imagine we live on a piece of ice. The ice under our feet is our foundation, and we build houses, roads, and sewers on top of them. Once this "foundation" was frozen very strong, but now it is slowly melting. "Eriksen said that as the permafrost partially melts, the foundations of many buildings begin to become unstable, and the roads become undulating." Bumps in the road can be clearly felt on the road. ”
A Russian study shows that at least 120,000 buildings, 40,000 kilometers of roads and 9,500 kilometers of pipelines in the country are located in the permafrost layer of the northern hemisphere. Affected by global warming, up to 80% of some cities built on permafrost have been damaged to varying degrees, and it is expected that more and more buildings will be damaged in the future, and the rate of damage will be faster and faster. Scientists expect that by 2050, 70 percent of the infrastructure of cities on permafrost will face high levels of damage, with estimated losses amounting to tens of billions of dollars.
Louise Farquharson, an Arctic geologist from the University of Alaska's Fairbanks, believes that the stability of foundations in Arctic permafrost areas depends on local temperatures. As the climate warms, the local surface temperature is getting closer to zero degrees Celsius, and the foundation is becoming more and more unstable. "In some of the communities I studied, bottom line water pipes have cracked and the surface has sunken, causing the foundations of homes to become very unstable," she said. There are even places where the permafrost has melted from flat land to ponds. At the same time, she also said that human beings have lived on this land for thousands of years, and it is unrealistic to suddenly let all the local residents migrate.
Triggering a global crisis: oil spills, the resurgence of ancient viruses...
The gradual melting of the Arctic permafrost poses an existential threat not only to the local population, but also to the security of the world. The researchers point out that as the permafrost gradually melts, the oil tanks buried in the ground become unstable and prone to oil spills.
▲ The river was stained red during the Russian oil spill
In 2020, a serious oil spill occurred in Siberia, Russia, in which about 21,000 tons of diesel spilled out of the storage tanks and rushed to the surrounding rivers, causing huge environmental pollution. Photos released by local media showed that the entire river was stained red and that the river could be ignited. According to Russian environmental groups, it will take 5 to 10 years and $1.5 billion to clean up the oil spill. It is reported that after investigation, the company involved indicated that the cause of the accident was the melting of the permafrost and the decline in the bearing capacity of the foundation, resulting in the sudden subsidence of the oil storage facility.
The melting of the permafrost will also accelerate the release of greenhouse gases and exacerbate global warming. Previous nasa research has found that the thawing of Arctic permafrost will accelerate the release of greenhouse gases, thereby exacerbating global warming and creating a vicious circle.
Sue Natali, an associate researcher at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, said: "Permafrost is rich in organic matter and has a carbon content of about 15 billion tons, which is about twice the carbon content in the atmosphere and three times the carbon content of all forests in the world." If it goes as usual, she explains, by 2100, 30 to 50 percent of the permafrost could melt, at which point the carbon encapsulated in the organic matter will be broken down by microbes and released in the form of carbon dioxide or methane. About 10 percent of the thawed carbon could be released in the form of carbon dioxide, totaling 130 billion to 150 billion tonnes, which is equivalent to the total emissions of the United States that maintained its current annual emissions until 2100. The melting of permafrost is actually equivalent to the creation of a country with the second largest emissions.
CNN has reported that some miniature "zombies" (leech rotifers) that have been frozen in the Arctic permafrost for 24,000 years have been resurrected and bred clones in a Russian laboratory.
In addition to this, there are concerns that the melting of permafrost will release unknown viruses. In an interview last December, Nikolay Korchunov, a Russian diplomat and senior official of the Arctic Council, said that the thawing of permafrost caused by global warming could lead to the "awakening" of ancient viruses and bacteria, posing an extreme threat to humanity, according to foreign media reports. Researchers in France and Russia have previously found two new giant prehistoric viruses in permafrost samples. One of the viruses, called Molivirus sibericum, has been dormant for 30,000 years, but can be revived immediately after thawing and exposing it to its host, the amoeba. Once the virus invades the host, it replicates in large numbers, producing about 1,000 new copies before killing the host they are in and moving to the next one. The Arctic Report has also previously speculated that eradicated diseases such as smallpox or the Black Death could be frozen in permafrost.
But Natali also said the fate of the Arctic is not a foregone conclusion. She called on humanity to reduce fossil fuel emissions, do everything possible to slow global warming, and keep as much permafrost as possible frozen. "Permafrost is about the fate of the Arctic, and the Arctic is about the fate of all mankind," she said. ”
Red Star News reporter Fan Xu Intern reporter Li Jinrui
Edited by Guo Yu
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