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What is permafrost?
Thanks for asking.
Permafrost is ground that remains frozen for two years or more.
It's made up of soil, rocks and sand and held together by ice.
In some places, this ground layer formed over 100000 years ago and it can reach several miles in depth.
Around 24 of land in the Northern Hemisphere has permafrost underneath it, according to the US National Snow and Ice Data Center.
It's mostly found in Arctic countries, in places like Russia, Canada and Alaska.
As planet Earth's climate warms, this permafrost is thawing, an alarming situation which is already having a dramatic impact.
What's happening to the permafrost then?
Scientists have mostly observed how the active layer of permafrost is changing.
That's the top part which thaws during the summer and freezes again in the autumn.
Due to global warming, which is happening quicker than anywhere else in the Arctic, the active layer is gradually getting thicker.
In some cases this is leading to huge holes in the ground which look like meteorite impact craters.
The initially hard ground softens and when towns have been built on top they simply collapse.
That's what happened in Norilsk in Siberia, where a 2016 study found that 60 of all buildings had been deformed.
That included a hundred residential buildings which had to be abandoned.
How does that affect the rest of us who don't live in those regions?
We may indeed be far away, but nevertheless, permafrost melting could have a very real impact on our health.
When permafrost thaws, microbes decompose the organic carbon plant material in the soil.
That releases greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane, which in turn accelerates global warming.
It's a real vicious circle.
Furthermore, permafrost contains around 15 million gallons of mercury, according to Vox.com.
Mercury is an extremely toxic metal which, if released, will pollute the oceans and accumulate in the food chain.
And finally, perhaps the most worrying point, permafrost is home to many unknown and dangerous pathogens, including the past diseases of prehistoric populations.
There are, as of yet, non-medical treatments to protect us from many of these.
In 2016, a 12-year-old boy died from an anthrax outbreak in Siberia.
Despite the disease having disappeared from the region in the 1940s, it's thought it came back due to a reindeer carcass which had been infected with anthrax decades before, only to unfreeze along with thawing permafrost.
There you have it.
Now you know what permafrost is.
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