From Alaska to Siberia, Arctic permafrost holds significantly more carbon than has ever been released by humans in all of our history. As permafrost continues to thaw due to rising temperatures, it is releasing vast amounts of ancient carbon, as well as newly produced greenhouse gases—methane and nitrous oxide. This brings potentially disastrous consequences for accelerating climate change.

But thawing permafrost emissions have not yet been included in the models and reports by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that inform international climate policy. With partners at the Arctic Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School and Alaska Institute for Justice, we have launched Permafrost Pathways, which is funded through The Audacious Project, to collect the best data on Arctic carbon emissions and transform it into sound policy.

Projects

Permafrost Pathways

Permafrost Discovery Gateway

Radiative Forcing of Arctic Carbon

Rising temperatures are reshaping Arctic and boreal landscapes in fundamental ways. As ice melts and permafrost thaws, the ground slumps and cracks. Tundra plants die in massive browning events. And wildfires occur with greater frequency each year—across the Arctic tundra and in boreal forests found in Siberia and Alaska, into Canada and Greenland.

These dramatic changes endanger local communities, lay waste to vast swaths of forest and habitat, and contribute to the release of even more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Woodwell scientists are working to help measure and monitor the forces that contribute to extreme Arctic events, while coordinating with local government agencies to create viable mitigation strategies to help keep stored carbon in place.

Projects

Permafrost Discovery Gateway

Arctic T-SLIP

Changing Boreal Fire Regimes

Water defines Arctic ecosystems. It is home to some of Earth’s largest rivers, drawing from vast watersheds and draining to the Arctic Ocean, while glaciers sculpt the landscape and ice permeates the ground.

By tracking when and how much water is flowing, and analyzing the nutrients it carries, Woodwell scientists gain critical insights into one of the planet’s most rapidly changing systems—helping us better understand what’s happening on land, in coastal areas, and in the atmosphere.

Projects

Arctic Great Rivers Observatory

Local weather is driven and connected by global-scale air currents at multiple levels of the atmosphere. Rapid Arctic warming is wreaking havoc on these atmospheric flow patterns, contributing to extreme weather—from heat waves to severe rainfall and flooding—across the northern hemisphere.

Woodwell Climate researchers have pioneered the science linking Arctic change to weather disruptions, and have shined a public spotlight on this issue through extensive media engagement and in-person events. Working with our partners at the Niskanen Center, we have also called the risks of extreme weather to the attention of policymakers through Congressional testimony.

Projects

Extreme Weather and Climate Change

Woodwell Climate scientists are tackling humanity’s greatest challenge in one of Earth’s most remote and vulnerable environments. It is certainly not something that we can do alone. Each year, through the Polaris Project, we engage the brightest young minds from a diversity of backgrounds, to help solve our most pressing scientific and societal challenges.

Projects

The Polaris Project