Arctic communities and infrastructure under threat from thawing permafrost
The Arctic has warmed twice as fast as the rest of the globe in the last two decades. In this region where the ground in some places is literally made of ice, rapid warming poses a serious threat to the lives, livelihoods and infrastructure of Arctic communities. A new review led by Dr. Gabriel Wolken from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and Woodwell Associate Scientist Dr. Anna Liljedahl details the biggest hazards that could result—and in some cases already have—from permafrost and glacial thaw.
The paper was released as a special addition to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Report Card, an annual report on the status of the Arctic region. In it, the authors outline what we know, and the much larger gaps in our knowledge, about how thawing permafrost and melting glaciers are impacting Arctic communities.
Ice holds the Arctic together. An estimated 23 million square miles of land in the Northern hemisphere is permafrost, soil that traditionally stayed frozen solid year-round. When it begins to thaw, the land slumps, which can cause sinkholes, erosions, and landslides. Retreating glaciers can also destabilize mountain slopes. When collapsing glaciers or mountainsides fall into a nearby water body, they can set off a chain of cascading hazards, including outburst floods, debris flow, and even tsunamis.
Events like these have already been documented, with serious impacts on Arctic residents, yet research and monitoring of these hazards have been lacking.
“Houses are already collapsing, communities are already being impacted by permafrost thaw and having to adapt, including in some cases, to relocate. That’s been happening for a decade, at least, and it’s not getting the attention it should be,” says Woodwell Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali, who also contributed to the Report Card.
And there is vast potential for unstable Arctic ground to have far-reaching global impacts. The collapse of an oil tank in Norilsk, Russia was partly attributed to the extremely warm conditions of 2020. Roads, pipelines, and shipping lanes are all at risk from thaw-related hazards.
“It’s not only affecting someone living near a glacier or on permafrost, it also extends farther than that,” Dr. Liljedahl says. “It includes national security. And we do not have broad-scale hazard identification and detection across the Arctic, or near real-time tracking of permafrost thaw and unstable slopes. We can do a lot more in utilizing the vast amounts of remote sensing imagery and observations made by people living in permafrost and glacier-affected landscapes.”
What’s desperately needed, Dr. Liljedahl says, are early warning systems that can alert residents of imminent threats, especially ones designed in tandem with the communities being affected. But, without more research and widespread monitoring of permafrost and unstable slopes, building such a system would be nearly impossible—akin to taking precautions against a volcanic eruption without knowing where the volcano is.
The behavior and rate of thaw is also likely to change as climate change progresses. Permafrost itself releases emissions when it thaws and that accelerates the warming process, increasing the urgency for the necessary systems to be put into place.
“The rate of hazard formation and the combined effects of these hazards is much higher than it has been in the past, which will make it more challenging to respond to without accelerated efforts to monitor and map these hazards, and develop cohesive response plans,” says Dr. Natali.
New documentary explores the feedback loops amplifying global warming
Earth Emergency, narrated by Richard Gere, premieres Wednesday, December 29 on PBS
While climate change is now a broadly recognized phenomenon, the environmental feedback loops that are amplifying and accelerating the process are less well understood. Earth Emergency, a new documentary to air on PBS, explains how warming caused by human activity is setting in motion
Earth’s own natural warming mechanisms, releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and further heating up the planet.
Originating from a conversation between Woodwell Distinguished Visiting Scientist Dr. William Moomaw and the film’s producers, Earth Emergency features several Woodwell Scientists including founder Dr. George Woodwell, Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali, Tropics Program Director Dr. Mike Coe, and President Dr. Philip Duffy.
The film uses captivating illustrations and graphics, stunning footage, and interviews with leading scientists to examine the crucial role feedback loops play in climate change. It conveys the urgency of stopping these cycles, letting natural systems remove carbon and preserving the delicate balance necessary to maintain Earth’s temperature. Narrated by Richard Gere and featuring the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg, Earth Emergency premieres on Wednesday, December 29, at 8:00 p.m. ET.
“Most people I know or encounter haven’t even heard of feedback loops or tipping points,” says Greta Thunberg. “But they are so crucial to understanding how the world works. We have such lack of respect for nature and for the environment. We just think that things will work out in the end. But we cannot solve the climate emergency without taking these feedback loops into account and without really understanding them. So that is a crucial step.”
Earth Emergency focuses on four feedback loops—explaining how warming in forests, permafrost, the atmosphere, and the poles work together to accelerate dangerous, amplifying cycles. The film was presented recently to the Members of the UK House of Parliament, and as part of HRH Prince of Wales’ Terra Carta Action Forum in Glasgow during COP26. The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History also held a summer film and discussion series based on the film.
Earth Emergency will stream simultaneously with broadcast and be available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV and Chromecast. The film will also be made available to astronauts on the International Space Station. For more information, check local listings on PBS.org and the PBS Video app.
After the premiere, it’s free to stream on PBS.org and the PBS Video app through January 28. After that, it’s be available with a PBS Passport membership or on Amazon with a PBS Documentaries subscription.
Introducing the Open Soil Spectral Library
On this World Soils Day, the Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good Coordinated Innovation Network, founded by Woodwell Climate, Opengeohub Foundation and University of Florida, announced the release of the Open Soil Spectral Library (OSSL).
Soil Spectroscopy Made Universally Accessible
The need for high-quality soil data has grown exponentially to support natural resource assessments, sustainable food production, and climate mitigation goals. Soil scientists have been struggling to meet this demand because measurement of soil still largely relies on shovels and benchtop analytical methods.
Reflectance spectroscopy, the measurement of light absorption at different wavelengths, has emerged as an important, rapid, and low-cost complement to traditional wet chemical analyses. However, a bottleneck to more widespread adoption of soil spectroscopy is the need for large reference training datasets and complex data analyses. To bridge this gap and enable hundreds of research soil and agronomy groups to collect more affordable soil data, Soil Spectroscopy for the Greater Good has created an open source and open data project.
The OSSL consists of multiple interrelated components. The first is a large database consisting of several continental and national collections of spectral data in both the visible-near infrared (VNIR) and mid infrared (MIR) regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as traditionally measured soil properties. These data can be accessed and visualized through the OSSL Explorer or directly worked with through an API or by downloading a snapshot of the entire database.
The second main component is the OSSL Engine, where users can upload spectra collected on their own instruments to estimate a set of soil properties using an ensemble of machine learning models.
Open and FAIR science is the heart of the OSSL. All compiled data and software is available here (under MIT license) and a versioned back-up copy of the data is also available via Zenodo (under CC-BY license), to allow users to extend, build upon, and even construct commercial businesses on top of the data and code.
Soil Spectroscopy for the Global Good is a Coordinated Innovation Network that brings together soil scientists, spectroscopists, informaticians, data scientists and software engineers to overcome some of the current bottlenecks preventing wider and more efficient use of soil spectroscopy. Datasets have been contributed by the USDA NRCS National Soil Survey Center – Kellogg Soil Survey Laboratory, ICRAF-World Agroforestry, ISRIC-World Soil Information, the Africa Soil Information Service funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the European Soil Data Centre, the National Ecological Observatory Network, and ETH Zurich.
Both the OSSL Explorer and OSSL Engine are currently still beta models and the project is accepting feedback for improvements here. Please contribute to this project and help us make better tools for measuring and monitoring our soils and land.
The feasibility of land-based carbon mitigation in 4 graphics
The importance of natural climate solutions came to the forefront of climate talks in Glasgow last week as decision makers discussed the “how” of making good on emissions pledges.
One of the most powerful existing solutions we can deploy are land-based mitigation strategies, also known as natural climate solutions. Forest protection and restoration, agroforestry, and other changes to the way we manage land can boost the amount of carbon ecosystems pull from the atmosphere and could help tackle 20-30 percent of the emissions reductions needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees C. These graphics, based on a recent study in Global Change Biology, break down the potential and feasibility of land-based carbon mitigation.
Cost-effective mitigation is only 40% of the total technical potential
Although there is great potential in land-based mitigation globally, some actions will be cheaper and easier to implement. Roughly 40 percent of the total carbon mitigation potential of land-based strategies can be considered cost-effective, with estimated price tags up to $100 per ton of carbon sequestered. On a global scale, actions like reducing deforestation or improving carbon sequestration on grasslands are incredibly cost effective. Shifting to healthier, more plant-based diets is another, individual, action that can have big impacts.
Agricultural mitigation is as important as forest protection in the Northern Hemisphere
On a regional level, the value of different actions varies. In Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Africa, the greatest mitigation power lies in forests, both protecting existing forests and restoring degraded ones. In Brazil, which holds 60 percent of Amazon forests, the feasible benefits are striking. For developed nations, like the United States, improving sequestration on agricultural lands is a much larger piece of the equation, almost equal to forest-related measures. This is because developed countries like the U.S. have already cut their old-growth forests.
Some small but carbon-rich ecosystems are “too dense to fell”
Ecosystems like mangroves or peatlands offer opportunities to make big emissions reductions over relatively small areas. Mangrove forests store vastly more carbon per hectare than most terrestrial forests—primarily due to large soil carbon stores—and only occupy thin strips of coastline across much of the tropics.
Their outsize carbon sequestration and storage potential means that restoring them offers a much greater return on investment than other ecosystems, and failing to protect them could place climate goals in serious jeopardy. Though employing all land-based mitigation strategies at our disposal is crucial, targeting the most carbon-rich forests could be a quicker, easier, more cost-effective first step.
Success or failure? Woodwell scientists deem COP26 a mixed bag
Glasgow Climate Pact alone is not enough to limit warming to 1.5 C, but COP26 made real progress
For the first two weeks of November, diplomats and scientists from around the world descended on Glasgow, Scotland for the United Nations’ 26th annual Conference of Parties—hailed by some as the “last, best, hope” for successful international cooperation on the issue of climate change. Woodwell sent three expert teams to push for more ambitious policies that integrate our understanding of permafrost thaw and socioeconomic risks, and for financial mechanisms to scale natural climate solutions. Here are their thoughts on the successes and failures of this pivotal meeting.
Bold pledges but uncertain follow-through for tropical forests
The conference started off with a bold promise from 100 nations to end deforestation by 2030, accompanied by a pledge of more than $19 billion from both governments and the private sector. Though similar pledges to end deforestation have failed in the past, the funding pledged alongside this one gives reason to be hopeful.
$1.7 billion of the funds are allocated specifically to support Indigenous communities, which Woodwell Assistant Scientist Dr. Glenn Bush believes is a big step forward, though creating policies that are equally supportive will be where the real work gets done.
“It’s particularly welcome that Indigenous peoples are finally being acknowledged as key protectors of forests. The real challenge, however, is how to deliver interlocking policies and actions that really do drive down deforestation globally and scale up nature-based solutions to climate change.”
Dr. Ane Alencar, Director of Science at IPAM Amazônia, said that, for Brazil, half of the solution could come from enforcing existing laws and designating public forests. The other half could come from consolidating protected areas, creating incentives for private land conservation, and providing technical support for sustainable food production.
Dr. Bush also presented the CONSERV project, a joint initiative between IPAM and Woodwell that provides compensation for farmers who preserve forests on their land, above and beyond their legal conservation requirements. Increasing the scale and financing of viable carbon market plans like CONSERV could be crucial in incentivizing greater forest protection.
Climate risk a growing focus for governments
During the second week of the conference, Woodwell released a summary report on a series of climate risk workshops with policymakers and climate risk experts from 13 G20 nations. These workshops, conducted in collaboration with the COP26 Presidency and the British government’s Science and Innovation Network, identified challenges to incorporating climate risk assessments into national-level policy, and the report made recommendations for moving from simply making the science available to making it useful for implementation. The report demonstrated a desire from policymakers to get involved in climate risk analyses early in the process, to ensure the information addresses a country’s particular needs.
One success of the conference was the creation of a new climate risk coalition, led by Woodwell. The coalition, composed of 9 other organizations, will produce an annual climate risk assessment for policymakers.
“Understanding the full picture of climate risk is incredibly important when you’re setting policy,” explained Woodwell’s Chief of External Affairs, Dave McGlinchey. “We also heard, however, that the climate risk assessments need to be designed with the policymakers who will eventually use them. This research must speak directly to their interests if it is going to be delivered effectively.”
The increased desire of policymakers to better understand and address oncoming climate risks demonstrates an important shift to viewing climate change as a present problem, rather than solely a future one.
Permafrost thaw presents the greatest remaining uncertainty in forecasting emissions
One risk that still isn’t high enough on the COP agenda is rapid Arctic change, particularly permafrost thaw. The Cryosphere Pavilion, hosted by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, convened conversations ranging from the implications of permafrost thaw, to environmental justice for Northern Communities and respecting Indigenous knowledge and culture. For Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, the Indigenous-led panels were some of the most impactful of the conference. But postdoctoral researcher Dr. Rachael Treharne noted that, no matter how well attended, there’s a difference between being in the Cryosphere Pavilion and being on the main stage.
Woodwell was among a group of organizations pushing to get permafrost emissions the attention it demands. Emissions released by thawing permafrost are currently not accounted for in national commitments, but are potentially equivalent to top emitting countries like the U.S. November 4 at the conference was “Permafrost Day” and each event was at full capacity for the pavilion, signaling growing attention to permafrost science. Woodwell, alongside a dozen polar and mountain interest groups called for even more commitment to the cryosphere conversation at the upcoming Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice U.N. climate conference in Bonn scheduled for June of 2022.
Even with this greater recognition of the seriousness of Arctic climate change, the region and its people are being hit much harder and faster than the rest of the globe. Slow-moving decision-making and talk without follow-through will seriously endanger Arctic residents.
“I left the COP having a very hard time feeling ‘optimistic’, while knowing that the hazards of climate change are already severely impacting Arctic lands, cultural resources, food and water security, infrastructure, homes, and ways of living,” said Dr. Natali. “After repeated years of record-breaking Arctic wildfires, heatwaves, and ice loss, I’m not sure how a 1.5 or 2C warmer world—one in which we know that these events will only get worse—is a reasonable goal.”
Though missing necessary milestones at COP26, climate action is accelerating
Overall, however, the final Glasgow Climate Pact fell short of the ambitious action the world needs in order to limit warming. The deal made several last-minute compromises surrounding the phase out of fossil fuels. COP president Alok Sharma said that, while a future with only 1.5 degrees of warming is possible, it is fragile—dependent on countries keeping to their promises.
Despite this, McGlinchey says there was real progress at COP26. The conference reached a resolution that earned the unanimous agreement of all attending parties. The formal process has also begun to accelerate, with nations required to return with more ambitious climate mitigation plans next year, rather than on the previous five year timeline.
“We are not yet where we need to be,” McGlinchey said. “But we are better off than where we were two weeks ago. Let’s keep going.”
Arctic Program Director Dr. Sue Natali testifies on Arctic security
Dr. Natali speaks to House representatives about national security threats caused by a warming Arctic
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony on November 16 on the national security implications of climate change in the Arctic. Woodwell Arctic Program Director, Dr. Sue Natali, presented research demonstrating the threats posed by rapid warming and thawing permafrost. Read her written statement.
Though globally, temperatures have risen 1.1 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, the Arctic is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the planet. As the region warms, melting sea ice and emissions released by thawing permafrost accelerate temperature increases and set up self-perpetuating feedback loops.
Dr. Natali emphasized the particular security threat from permafrost thaw. These frozen soils store vast amounts of ancient carbon. As they thaw, the carbon is broken down and released in a process that cannot be undone.
“The loss of permafrost carbon is irreversible on a human-relevant timeframe,” Dr. Natali said. “When accounting for the full scope of thaw processes, cumulative permafrost carbon emissions by the end of this century could be on par with continued emissions from a country like Japan or as high as continued emissions from the United States.”
Warmer ground also brings with it a host of additional risks. The frequency of Arctic fires increases with the temperature, and can burn deep into the soil and last through the winter if the ground does not re-freeze. Arctic communities are also at risk from land subsidence—the slumping of frozen ground as the rigid structure of the ice begins to melt—as well as loss of food and water security and the endangerment of traditional culture.
Several Alaskan villages are now seeking relocation as the stability of their lands begins to crumble. In her testimony, Dr. Natali pushed for the government to provide greater support for these communities, and to prepare itself as more and more Arctic residents feel the full impacts of warming.
“Domestically, we need to act now to ensure that communities in Alaska and federal agencies are prepared for these impacts and put into place aggressive mitigation policies to prevent further avoidable climate warming,” Dr. Natali said.
Climate change is pushing Brazil’s farmland out of agricultural suitability range
A new study, published this week in Nature Climate Change, finds that warmer and drier climatic conditions in Brazil are changing the agricultural productivity of one of the world’s largest bread baskets.
Central Brazil leads the world in production of key staple crops including soybeans and corn, but those crops depend on a stable climate. Deforestation to expand such agricultural production is a counterproductive strategy, as it not only accelerates global warming, but also causes changes to the regional climate that can drastically impact crop yields.
The study, led by Dr. Ludmila Rattis, Assistant Scientist at Woodwell Climate, modeled changes to precipitation and temperature along Brazil’s Cerrado-Amazon frontier—a region responsible for half of the country’s agricultural output. The results show that already 28% of agricultural lands are no longer in an optimal climatic range, and that percentage will shoot up to 74% by 2060 as the region gets hotter and drier. The Cerrado in particular, Dr. Rattis says, will feel the effects of reduced agricultural productivity.
90% of Brazil’s agriculture is rainfed, which makes droughts, heatwaves, and other climatic interruptions a major economic risk. When the temperature gets warmer, plants grow faster, which releases more water vapor into the air from their leaves as a byproduct of photosynthesis. But if there isn’t a steady supply of soil moisture available to replace water lost through transpiration, productivity declines.
That difference in moisture is called the vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is a way of determining how thirsty the air is in a region. Dr. Rattis’s study found that over the past two decades, agricultural land has been expanding into areas of higher VPD.
With cropland pushing into less-than-optimal land, and deforestation exacerbating drought, agricultural intensification practices are becoming less feasible on existing cleared land. Practices like double-cropping corn and soy in one season are common, but require farmers to take advantage of the full length of the rainy season. With climate change, however, rainy seasons are starting later and dry seasons are more intense, requiring a lot more moisture to make up the deficit when the rains do come. If farmers can no longer plant two crops in one season, the pressure to deforest additional land to make up for lost profits will increase.
“If you don’t have the time you invest in more space,” says Dr. Rattis.
Irrigation isn’t necessarily a sustainable solution when roughly 70% of Brazil’s electricity comes from hydroelectric power, and the country’s rivers and groundwater supply depend on maintaining existing hydrology.
Professor Paulo Brando, an ecosystem scientist at the University of California, Irvine and co-author on the paper, describes how Brazil’s agricultural status quo is untenable.
“The current production system in the region may be reaching its full climatic potential,” Brando says. “Not part of this study, but it is clear from a growing body of research that a change in food habits and a reduction in food waste could help alleviate some of the pressure.”
According to Dr. Rattis, the key to successfully adapting Brazilian agriculture to a warmer climate lies in restoring and preserving native vegetation on the landscape—reducing the pressure on farmers to deforest and finding ways for forests and agriculture to share the land.
“Forests act like air conditioners for your crops. Farmers need to understand that deforesting in the face of climate change is like getting rid of your air conditioners before an upcoming heatwave,” Rattis says.
Mountain and polar groups seek urgent COP26 decision
As climate talks in Glasgow head into their second week, Woodwell Climate Research Center joins mountain and polar groups at COP26 calling for more consideration of the dire global impacts that will result from the loss of glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost should governments not take greater action.
These research, environmental, and Indigenous organizations span the global “cryosphere” (snow and ice regions), from the poles to the high mountain Asia “Third Pole.” They believe that the poor understanding by governments of the real implications of the cryosphere poses a dangerous issue for climate goals. As a matter of urgency, the groups are asking COP26 to approve a decision point mandating the UNFCCC to arrange a day-long meeting, or “Cryosphere Dialogue,” at the next inter-sessional climate conference, scheduled to take place in Bonn in June 2022.
“For too long, our planet’s frozen elements have been absent from the climate debate at the UNFCCC, even though their crucial role in determining the future for more than a billion people and our climate is becoming ever more clear,” said Dr. Martin Sommerkorn, IPCC SROCC author, of the WWF Arctic Programme. “The UNFCCC must urgently create space for Parties and stakeholders to discuss actions to be taken in response to this cryosphere crisis.”
The groups note that despite the dire consequences noted in the IPCC’s August report there has never been a full discussion of the irreversibility of projected changes in the cryosphere at climate talks. In contrast, the UNFCCC has held Dialogues on oceans and lands.
Dr. Rachael Treharne from Woodwell Climate Research Center explained, “Thawing Arctic permafrost makes carbon that has been locked in the deep freeze for millennia vulnerable to release into the atmosphere. It’s critical that international mitigation policies address this catastrophic regional and global hazard.”
“Negotiators may think they know about melting ice caps, but what they don’t realize is that the impacts are essentially permanent on human timescales, and catastrophic for humanity,” noted Dr. Robert DeConto, a leading researcher with one of the groups, the Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). “Once the collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet begins, it will be effectively impossible to halt,” agrees Jonathan Bamber, Director of the Bristol Glaciology Centre and a multiple IPCC author.
Pam Pearson, Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, which is hosting a Cryosphere Pavilion at the conference, said. “The questions by governments during discussion of the latest IPCC report last week underscore that this issue needs more than a 15-minute presentation.”
“The polar regions are no longer an early warming signal for climate change,” concludes Professor Dame Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey. “Instead, they are now a driver of climate change and this reality needs to be better understood.”
The other organizations and institutions include the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the International Arctic Science Committee (IASC), Grantham Institute at Imperial College, Bolin Centre at Stockholm University, and the National Snow and Ice Data Center at University of Colorado Boulder.