A new program aims to monitor, mitigate and adapt to Arctic-wide thaw

In The News
April 18, 2022

A researcher takes a measurement on a shoreline eroding due to permafrost thaw

A new program aims to monitor, mitigate and adapt to Arctic-wide thaw

The $41 million Permafrost Pathways program is an ambitious effort to better understand and adapt to one of the Arctic’s biggest threats.

A researcher takes a measurement on a shoreline eroding due to permafrost thaw

In some Alaska Native villages, land collapses caused by combined permafrost thaw, open waters. Flooding, storm surges and erosion are so catastrophic that they now go by a single Yup’ik word: Usteq.

Now there is a broad-ranging program to better understand, respond to and potentially avoid more usteq.

The Woodwell Climate Research Center and the Harvard Kennedy School’s Arctic Initiative this week unveiled their multi-year Permafrost Pathways program. The $41 million program, with funding from the collaborative Audacious Project, will combine global permafrost-thaw monitoring with regional and local initiatives to adapt to the onset of usteq and related challenges.