Permafrost

File:Circum-Arctic Map of Permafrost and Ground Ice Conditions.png

Map showing the extent and types of permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere.

File:Digging in permafrost.jpg

Two men dig in Alaska to study soil. A jackhammer is used to break the hard permafrost

In geology, permafrost is soil that stays frozen all year. To be called permafrost, soil must stay at or below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years. Permafrost is also called cryotic soil. Most permafrost is on land close to the North and South poles. Other permafrost is found in high mountain areas. When permafrost melts, carbon dioxide is released which can be bad for the environment.

Permafrost Media

• Sayedi 2020 post LGM permafrost.jpg

  Changes in subsea permafrost extent and structure between the Last Glacial Maximum and 2020

• Coulombe 2019 ground ice diagram.png

  Labelled example of a massive buried ice deposit in Bylot Island, Canada

• Massive ice - retrogressive thaw slump - Herschel Island.png

  Cliff wall of a retrogressive thaw slump located on the southern coast of Herschel Island within an approximately 22-metre (72 ft) by 1,300-metre (4,300 ft) headwall.

• Peat Plateau Complex.jpg

  A peat plateau complex south of Fort Simpson, Northwest Territories.

• Cracks forming at the edges of the Storflaket permafrost bog in Sweden

• Recently thawed Arctic permafrost and coastal erosion on the Beaufort Sea, Arctic Ocean, near Point Lonely, Alaska in 2013.

• Hugelius 2020 peatland projections.jpg

  Permafrost peatlands (a smaller, carbon-rich subset of permafrost areas) under varying extent of global warming, and the resultant emissions as a fraction of anthropogenic emissions needed to cause that extent of warming.

• Fig 1.2.15 Schematic showing feedback processes related to land and subsea permafrost..png

  Feedback processes related to land and subsea permafrost.