Global warming and the permafrost - Economist- About: global warming news

It distorts the Earth’s surface, too, creating a landscape of domes and pits known as thermokarst because of its resemblance to the karstic terrain of limestone-rich parts of the world. And that is the object of a project with the unsnappy name of Spatial and Temporal Influences of Thermokarst Failures on Surface Processes in Arctic Landscapes, which was kicked off by a group of scientists who gathered in late June at the Toolik Field Station in northern Alaska. The team will then try to work out how the development of features such as “retrogressive thaw slumps” and “active-layer detachments” (different ways in which thawing permafrost can cause a hillside to slip) are associated with the local climate, geology and vegetation. They will look, too, at the amount of ice in the ground, and the temperature and the moisture of the soil. The softening of the soil and the consequent release of nutrients is likely to encourage the growth of shrubs on land that is now dominated by grass, moss and lichens.

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