How are NASA and the University of Alaska involved in the study of permafrost?
We have an ongoing satellite project with NASA to look at Russian permafrost. Russia is experiencing rapid degradation of permafrost, and we want to learn more about how that thawing is affecting the levels of lakes and rivers and the amount of melt water – released from melted snow or ice – pouring into the ocean. The Russians have been collecting runoff data for a century. Those data are telling us that runoff is increasing in the winter, but we’re trying to figure out why. We believe that thawing permafrost plays a role in controlling infiltration of rain and snowmelt, which affects the timing of eventual runoff into rivers and to the ocean. We know for sure that the increased runoff is contributing to a freshening of the waters of the Arctic Ocean; lower-density freshwater tends to float on the saltier ocean water. Increases in fresh water near the Earth’s poles could affect the circulation in the oceans, which influences everything from atmospheric temperatures to storm intensity.
