WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:00.060 --> 00:00:04.090 [Music rises] Sturm: What we're looking at is a lecacy of the ice age. 2 00:00:04.090 --> 00:00:08.200 Permafrost and methane 3 00:00:08.200 --> 00:00:12.400 is a time machine. 4 00:00:12.400 --> 00:00:16.500 So what we’re going to do is walk back in time. We’re gonna see old carbon, 5 00:00:16.500 --> 00:00:20.620 old bones, old environments. 6 00:00:20.620 --> 00:00:24.820 And none of those are in equilibrium with today’s climate so that’s the problem. 7 00:00:24.820 --> 00:00:28.890 That world doesn’t exist anymore and it hasn’t for 10,000 years. 8 00:00:28.890 --> 00:00:32.970 It was nicely and very delicately 9 00:00:32.970 --> 00:00:37.060 separated from this modern warmer climate by about 10 00:00:37.060 --> 00:00:41.150 this much moss. And when that moss goes away 11 00:00:41.150 --> 00:00:45.330 whether through fire or for human disturbance 12 00:00:45.330 --> 00:00:49.400 or for warming, then all hell breaks loose. 13 00:00:49.400 --> 00:00:53.620 [lively opening credit music] 14 00:00:53.620 --> 00:00:57.800 15 00:00:57.800 --> 00:01:01.910 16 00:01:01.910 --> 00:01:06.050 17 00:01:06.050 --> 00:01:10.230 [music fades] 18 00:01:10.230 --> 00:01:14.370 Narrator: Permafrost – it’s maybe the part of the cryosphere that’s most out of sight 19 00:01:14.370 --> 00:01:18.560 … and mind. It’s fascinating how it formed in the first place, 20 00:01:18.560 --> 00:01:22.650 and how it got loaded with so much carbon. 21 00:01:22.650 --> 00:01:26.750 In a minute, we’ll go back underground with Matthew Sturm from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. 22 00:01:26.750 --> 00:01:30.900 But first let’s meet Peter Griffith, 23 00:01:30.900 --> 00:01:35.050 NASA’s project manager for the ABoVE Campaign, which supports more than 24 00:01:35.050 --> 00:01:39.090 70 science projects studying changing forests and tundra vegetation. 25 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:43.260 wild fires, animals like birds, caribou, 26 00:01:43.260 --> 00:01:47.320 and Dall sheep, methane emissions from expanding northern lakes, 27 00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:51.500 and the impacts of climate change on people in Alaska, Canada 28 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:55.670 … and around the world. Many of those projects have some direct 29 00:01:55.670 --> 00:01:59.830 connection to the permafrost. Griffith: Permafrost is the 30 00:01:59.830 --> 00:02:03.930 hidden cryosphere. It’s the permanently frozen soil 31 00:02:03.930 --> 00:02:08.060 that surrounds the Arctic. All across Alaska and northern Canada and then 32 00:02:08.060 --> 00:02:12.230 across Eurasia, the ground has been frozen 33 00:02:12.230 --> 00:02:16.270 during the Ice Ages. 34 00:02:16.270 --> 00:02:20.380 Narrator: During the ice ages, there was not enough snowfall in the drier regions of Alaska and Canada 35 00:02:20.380 --> 00:02:24.550 to form glaciers there, so the land was suitable for vegetation. 36 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:28.700 Griffith: What happened is that over thousands and thousands of years, all of that 37 00:02:28.700 --> 00:02:32.810 plant material got compacted and frozen every winter and buried 38 00:02:32.810 --> 00:02:36.960 and pushed down, so that today, there’s 300 feet deep 39 00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:41.100 of frozen water and dead plants and 40 00:02:41.100 --> 00:02:45.130 some pieces of dead animals, too. Sometimes, you’d find 41 00:02:45.130 --> 00:02:49.180 woolly mammoths in the permafrost. But most of it, 42 00:02:49.180 --> 00:02:53.300 of the organic matter as we call it in the permafrost 43 00:02:53.300 --> 00:02:57.460 is frozen plant material. 44 00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:01.520 Narrator: Some of that plant material is now thawing and decaying, releasing its ancient 45 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:05.620 carbon into the atmosphere, sometimes in the form of methane gas 46 00:03:05.620 --> 00:03:09.690 bubbling out of expanding northern lakes. 47 00:03:09.690 --> 00:03:13.810 Griffith: We started this field campaign because 48 00:03:13.810 --> 00:03:17.940 the Arctic is the part of the planet that is warming first and fastest 49 00:03:17.940 --> 00:03:22.130 and there are consequences to this for permafrost. 50 00:03:22.130 --> 00:03:26.240 During the Arctic-Boreal Vulnerability Experiment, we’re studying permafrost 51 00:03:26.240 --> 00:03:30.350 with people on the ground, from aircraft flying 52 00:03:30.350 --> 00:03:34.520 over the region, and also from satellites in space. 53 00:03:34.520 --> 00:03:38.720 Narrator: Another way to understand the permafrost is take a walk 54 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:42.790 below ground with Matthew Sturm, and into the 55 00:03:42.790 --> 00:03:46.900 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permafrost tunnel. 56 00:03:46.900 --> 00:03:51.040 Griffith: And they’ve dug this tunnel back into the side of a hill about 200 feet. 57 00:03:51.040 --> 00:03:55.250 And it goes sort of sloping down, 58 00:03:55.250 --> 00:03:59.340 so that by the end of the tunnel, you’re about 100 feet underground. 59 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:03.420 And you’re surrounded by bones sticking out of the wall 60 00:04:03.420 --> 00:04:07.510 from the steppe bison and the mastodons 61 00:04:07.510 --> 00:04:11.640 that are frozen in it. There’s sticks that are 40,000 years old 62 00:04:11.640 --> 00:04:15.690 you know, that you can touch with your hand. There’s grass that’s still green 63 00:04:15.690 --> 00:04:19.920 that’s tens of thousands of years because it got frozen 64 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.990 right away and it’s never lost the green color. 65 00:04:23.990 --> 00:04:28.090 Narrator: But as fascinating as it is to see these relics of an ancient era, 66 00:04:28.090 --> 00:04:32.210 or to see a tree split in half by thawing soil, 67 00:04:32.210 --> 00:04:36.380 or even to light a ball of methane on fire from under winter ice … 68 00:04:36.380 --> 00:04:40.460 at the end of the day Peter and his colleagues want to know just how much organic matter 69 00:04:40.460 --> 00:04:44.580 is frozen in that permafrost, and how fast it might be released. 70 00:04:44.580 --> 00:04:48.670 Griffith: Currently we think that there is 71 00:04:48.670 --> 00:04:52.840 something on the order of two to three times 72 00:04:52.840 --> 00:04:56.900 as much carbon locked up as 73 00:04:56.900 --> 00:05:00.970 frozen organic matter and permafrost, as there is carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 74 00:05:00.970 --> 00:05:05.110 So, releasing 75 00:05:05.110 --> 00:05:09.140 all of that organic carbon from permafrost into the atmosphere, 76 00:05:09.140 --> 00:05:13.240 would be a real game-changer. That would be a tremendous 77 00:05:13.240 --> 00:05:17.340 transformation of the planet’s atmosphere. Now, the good news 78 00:05:17.340 --> 00:05:21.550 is that it would take a very, very long time for that to happen. 79 00:05:21.550 --> 00:05:25.640 However, we are warming the planet 80 00:05:25.640 --> 00:05:29.710 at a rate now that calls in to question, how quickly 81 00:05:29.710 --> 00:05:33.840 is that changing, and what the consequences 82 00:05:33.840 --> 00:05:37.950 in the near future and in the far future are going to be. 83 00:05:37.950 --> 00:05:42.010 [Music, sounds of a crowd chatting] 84 00:05:42.010 --> 00:05:46.070 Neumann: You're in a field, somewhere in California at four in the morning. 85 00:05:46.070 --> 00:05:50.230 It's sort of surreal in a way. Because, you've put so much time into it for 86 00:05:50.230 --> 00:05:54.350 so long, and actually seeing it over there is like ... [laughs] 87 00:05:54.350 --> 00:06:04.130 Whoa, you know! It's a, it's a big deal.