Permafrost!

Permafrost is any ground that remains completely frozen for two or more years. Another name for permafrost is cryotic soil. Cryotic soil is part of the cryosphere, or the snow and ice covered regions of the Earth. These regions can be found in many places on the planet but we are mainly talking about the North and South Poles and the mountains in the northern latitudes.  Although it may not seem important to you, it is important to all animals, plants and people. The Earth is warming up. This temperature change has been named Global Warming. The cryosphere is where climate change has been most obvious, and it is where scientists are obtaining a crucial amount of data.

Permafrost does not necessarily exist at the surface. You can be walking on ground that has plants and beautiful wildflowers at the surface, and be just feet above the permafrost. At this upper layer the soil can stay frozen for at least 15 days but at some time does defrost. This is called the active layer. Below the active layer is another layer that stays frozen longer but at some time in a two year period does defrost. Under this second layer of soil lies the permafrost and it doesn’t thaw out. Can you imagine dirt that is never warmer than 32 degrees? A permanent ice cube made of dirt. Brrrr, I am shivering thinking about that. 

Right now the Earth’s permafrost is thawing out and this has given scientists a chance to see and measure the changes that go with that phenomenon. Some of the permafrost that has shown these changes have been frozen for a few hundred years, while others have been frozen for thousands of years. So there is a lot to learn. One thing that scientists have learned is that global warming is causing the melting of permafrost and that is making global warming worse. This happens because organisms that have been trapped in the frozen soil begin to decompose as the soil warms up. As the organisms decompose they release CO2 (carbon dioxide) which turns into methane gas. This causes more warming.

Most of us think about a teeny-tiny living thing that we can see under a microscope when we hear the word organism. However, an organism can be any plant, animal or other lifeform. So you and I are also organisms and that is where some mysterious and amazing discoveries have been made in the melting of the permafrost. Things found in the melting ice include a woolly mammoth, ice bear, a wolf cub, a baby horse and humans. These are not just the bones of the creatures but actual mummies that have been preserved in the permafrost soil. From the mummified remains scientists have been able to get DNA and learn so much about the animals and people from thousands of years ago. Scientists also found plant seeds frozen in permafrost in Siberia. They were actually able to plant the 30,000 year old seeds and grow the oldest known plant in the world. What will they discover next?