Polar Voices

Frozen soils (or permafrost) in the Arctic are thawing, destabilizing the ground surface and damaging buildings and roads. Although infrastructure is crumbling, scientists are more concerned with the potential for runaway global warming as preserved plant material in the soils starts to break down into carbon dioxide. Global climate action plans are in place to limit global warming to 2⁰C, but the huge volume of carbon stored in the soils may push us past that target.