Permafrost is a cryospheric topic referring to ground (soil, sediment, or rock, with included ice and organic material) that remains at or below 0 °C for at least two consecutive years. Its thermal and hydrological regimes are governed by surface energy balance, snow cover, vegetation, and ground ice content, leading to stratified active layers that thaw seasonally above a perennially frozen substrate. Permafrost dynamics influence geomorphological processes such as thermokarst formation, ground subsidence, and slope instability, and critically regulate carbon and methane fluxes from frozen organic matter. Research on permafrost integrates climatology, biogeochemistry, geotechnical engineering, and remote sensing to quantify its stability and feedbacks within the Earth system.
Most people think of ice as frozen and lifeless, but research at Umeå University shows the opposite. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that ice actively speeds up the ...
Earth Sciences
May 26, 2026
0
15
Thawing permafrost is rapidly transforming dozens of Arctic streams into acidic, metal-laden waterways, according to new research published in Science. The study shows how thawing permafrost exposes sulfide minerals that ...
Earth Sciences
May 22, 2026
0
86
An international team of scientists has discovered that methane hydrates beneath the northwest Greenland continental shelf became rapidly destabilized by meltwater, releasing large stores of methane during ice-sheet retreat ...
Earth Sciences
May 14, 2026
0
39
As the Arctic warms at an unprecedented rate, frozen soils that have remained locked in ice for most of the year are now thawing for longer periods. Yet new research led by an international team including scientists from ...
Earth Sciences
May 7, 2026
0
23
A study has provided new evidence of beavers' expansion into the Canadian Arctic by dating the changes they have made to the tundra landscape as they spread northward. Published in the journal Ecosphere, the research combines ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 24, 2026
0
20
Thawing permafrost buried underneath rivers may be accelerating permafrost degradation faster than previously estimated in these inundated regions, according to new research shared at the 2026 SSA Annual Meeting.
Environment
Apr 18, 2026
0
15
Svalbard reindeer live in a place so remote they have actually evolved to become a subspecies. But that remoteness isn't enough to protect them from contaminants from the industrial world.
Environment
Apr 9, 2026
0
23
In a first-of-its-kind study, a team of researchers led by geoscientist Michael Rawlins at the University of Massachusetts Amherst has shown in fine-grained detail what happens when Arctic permafrost thaws. Focusing on a ...
Earth Sciences
Apr 1, 2026
1
91
Experiments by University of Leeds researchers, published in Earth's Future, have shown that thawing of permafrost makes it between 25 and 100 times more permeable, allowing more climate change forcing gases to escape.
Earth Sciences
Mar 30, 2026
0
1015
Some Arctic regions regain their "greenness" within a decade of a sudden permafrost collapse, while others can take a century or more to recover, researchers report in a new study. The difference is directly related to each ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 30, 2026
0
606
